
















































THE BROKEN LAUGH 



THE BROKEN 
LAUGH 


BY 

MEG YILLARS 

AUTHOR OP “ BETTY - ALL - ALONE ” 


“ What is called virtue is nearly always, only luck ” 
John Galsworthy 


NEW YORK 

ROBERT M. McBRIDE & CO. 

1920 


iM 






' f 

C ( c 




















































To GRANT RICHARDS 


BECAUSE HE ENCOURAGED ME 





CONTENTS 


PART I 


CHAPTER 



PAGE 

I. Croydon . 


. 

9 

II. The Millar Girl 



80 

III. London . 



53 

IV. Paris 



72 

V. The rue Macabre 



94 

VI. The Admirable . 



110 

PART II 




I. The Inevitable . 



143 

II. Brussels 



151 

III. The Little House 



159 

IV. The Dinner-party 



174 

V. War 



186 

VI. The Warm Hearthstone 



199 

VII. He Travels Fastest 



219 

VIII. — Who Travels Alone . 



238 

IX. The Knitting Girl 



270 

X. From the Blue 


( 

295 


7 


















PART I 


CHAPTER I 
Croydon 

I 

It was a hopeless case. The only thing that remained 
to be done was to get rid of it as suavely as possible 
and hope that it would return later ; some day in 
September perhaps, when the autumn fashions would 
be in. In that case, God send that the autumn fashions 
be more suitable to its ungainliness. 

For the third time that afternoon, Madame Estelle 
hid behind the showroom screen and sought refresh- 
ment from her powder-puff. A fatigued, almost powder- 
less, and very greasy powder-puff. It moulted when 
Madame scrubbed it over her face, leaving bits of fluff 
that stuck to eyelashes and eyebrows, and had to be 
removed with a licked finger-tip. 

In the centre of the showroom, in front of a cheval 
glass that shuddered on its pivots as the trams rumbled 
up and down the High Street, its rich contours oozing 
over the sides of a fragile gilt chair, determinedly sat 
the hopeless case. 

The sales-ladies, with despair in their eyes contra- 
dicting the mechanical smile seccotined to their lips, 
stood round in limp lop-sided attitudes. One could 
divine from each bulging hip the effort to ease tormented 
feet in smart high-heeled one-and-eleven-penny-ha’penny 
“ patent ” leather slippers. At the end of each dangling 
9 


10 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

arm, held carelessly by slack fingers, were hats : little 
hats, big hats, imposing Gainsboroughs, roguish niniches, 
floppy Leghorns, prim “ boaters,” missish “ sailors,’ 
tulle hats, spangled hats — “ spangles are being greatly 
worn in Paris this season, Madam ” — chiffon hats, hats 
of lace, hats of glacS ; and odd shapes to which vivid 
trimmings had been tentatively pinned. There were 
even bonnets. Bonnets with bugles and ribbon strings, 
and bonnets that recklessly did without strings and 
called themselves toques. It was a mass meeting of 
hats. They barnacled overwhelmingly. On the floor, 
on the tables, on the sister-chairs to the one that groaned 
under its taxing burden. They topped the columns 
between which the mirror swung, hung drunkenly askew 
from brass, cushion-topped stands ; were piled on the 
shelves of an open cupboard, climbed over the edges 
of circular white -cardboard boxes branded, in golden 
cursive, as the property of Madame Estelle ; and finally 
was there one, the most impossible monstrous creation 
of all, perched precariously on the tightly drawn, scant 
grey top-knot of the hopeless case in the chair. 

The bulging curves, the dress, the jewellery were the 
fit attributes that stamped their owner as the wife of 
a rich self-made tradesman. Only the excessively fat, 
after lean, years could account for the gelatinous plump- 
ness and general air of uncomfortable but patiently 
borne repletion. In the over- corpulent, over-dressed, 
over -jewelled creature on the chair one regretted the 
active woman she might have been, possibly she regretted 
it herself, and would have willingly exchanged the 
flowered brocade for a serge gown, and the gold chate- 
laine for a sackcloth apron, so long as she could keep 
enough from the renounced splendour to ensure that 
always there would be a bit o’ prime meat for the Sunday 
dinner. 

She looked at her reflection in the mirror and sighed. 


CROYDON IX 

The monstrous mauve hat with its purple pleureuse 
plumes was a cruel absurdity perched above her damp 
red face with its double chins and sad little blue eyes, 
and yet Madame Estelle, the sales-ladies chorusing, 
had declared how charming Madam looked in it. The 
victim recognized the lie, and writhed under the insult 
to her intelligence ; “ but, poor things,” she was think- 
ing with unexpected sympathy and understanding, 
“ ’ow sick they must be of me.” She had been there 
since tea-time and the closing hour was very near. She 
was loathe to leave without buying, but really those 
hats were impossible, they made her look like a Greater 
Silly than ever was. Seizing her courage in both pudgy 
hands, she diffidently suggested, as Madame Estelle 
glided swishingly from behind the screen, that she had 
“ best be gettin’ along : I’m afraid I’ll *ave to be going 
as I can’t find anything to suit. It’s really too bad, 
ain’t it ? ” 

What the Hopeless Case meant was that it was too 
bad to have wasted so much of Madame’s valuable 
time ; but Madame Estelle understood herself to be 
blamed. 

“ If Madam will only spare me a few minutes more 
I am certain I can suit Madam,” she boasted ; but there 
was a discouraging want of conviction in her voice ; 
nevertheless, she walked to the cupboard and began 
to turn over, for the twentieth time that afternoon, 
the untrimmed shapes, searching the void of her dazed 
brain for inspiration. 

A little apprentice crept into the showroom, and 
looked at Madame with inquiring eyes to see if she might 
commence to clear away and put tidy. A child-girl of 
seventeen whose white apron dangled longer than her 
short brown skirt ; and whose thick black hair still 
flapped in a double pig-tail between her shoulders ; 
she had the white face that comes of sewing for long 


12 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

hours in close workrooms, but her thin, daintily curved 
little mouth was wholesomely pink, and grey eyes looked 
squarely and confidently at the world. 

In one hand she carried a hat ; in the other a veil. 
Madame Estelle stared, hot at the apprentice, not at 
the veil, but at the HAT ; the only hat in the place that 
the Hopeless Case had not tried on! She tore it from 
the child’s grasp and hurried to her patient customer. 
No one had thought of that hat. It was, properly 
speaking, not a hat at all ; but merely something with 
which to cover one’s head. In millinery parlance, it 
was a joke ; it was a scream, a freak ; it would never 
have dared to come out of its box unless for a wager. 
It was, in fact, the last attempt at creation the little 
apprentice had made. She had aimed at simplicity, 
she explained to the other girls in the workroom : they 
screamed at her that she had only achieved dowdiness. 

The sales-ladies, forgetting their tired feet, sprang 
to attention ; one removed the mauve and purple 
creation ; the other patted gently into place a wisp 
of hair that had strayed, and then Madame Estelle 
herself, eyes intent and with the proper dosage of defer- 
ence and authority, placed the joke on its appointed 
place ; she stepped back, her head on one side ; the 
sales-ladies assumed ecstatic attitudes. 

But no sound came from the half -open lips that were 
preparing to enthuse with professional insincerity ! For 
the miracle had happened. 

The “ joke ” suited. Where Paris models from Jane, 
Lewis, and Alex had failed, the “freak” had succeeded, 
and the Hopeless Case was hopeless no longer. 

The flat, moderately brimmed little blue hat fitted 
neatly over the smooth unwaved hair that it covered ; 
two modest white wings jutted on either side with dis- 
creet jauntiness, it was the ideal middle-aged hat for a 
middle-aged woman. In the amazed silence the little 


CROYDON 13 

apprentice stepped up to the customer. All the satis- 
faction of an artist who has won recognition shone in 
her eyes while, at the same time, instinct prompted her 
to perfect her success. 

“ Try it with a veil, m’am,” she said, offering the veil 
she held in her needle-pricked fingers. 

Madame Estelle coughed to hide her embarrassment, 
the sales-ladies rustled indignantly, and somebody 
whispered : “ Gracious, Kissy, you've got a bit of cheek, 
you have ! ” But the little apprentice was deaf to all, 
while the veil — white net embroidered with blue — was 
draped over the wonderful hat. 

The result subsequently proved the crown of Kissy- 
Girl’s career as a milliner. Under the light layer of 
tulle the greasy red face appeared less greasy and less 
red. Two of the unnecessary chins were hidden under 
the white fullness that was draped to the nape of the 
neck. The blue eyes, opening in delighted surprise, 
beamed in the glass with an enchanting middle-aged 
twinkle : 

“ If it isn’t just the spit image of the hat I wore the 
day my John proposed to me, only it was a brown with 
yeller bows — an’ I didn’t need no veil,” she added 
wistfully. 

Madame Estelle rallied and rose to the occasion. 
“ This is the copy of a Lewis model, Madam,” she said. 
“ I really cannot understand how it slipped my memory 
till now. Indeed it suits Madam perfectly — and only 
four guineas ! Shall I have it sent home or will Madam 
wear it at once ? ” 

“ I’ll wear it ” — the speaker surged heavily to her 
feet — “A copy is it?” she remarked dryly, “and ’oo 
copied it, may I ask ? Did you ? ” she demanded abruptly 
of the little apprentice before Madame Estelle or the 
ever rustling sales-ladies could answer. 

“Ye . . .” Kissy-Girl began to reply, but Madame 


14 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

Estelle’s pink varnished finger nails nipping through 
the flimsy blouse sleeve changed the final “ s ” to a 
stammered incoherent “ er . . . er . . . ! ” 

“ Well anyway, *oo ever copied it, you brought it 
along, with the veil, so this is for you, my dear.” 

Fat fingers groped in an immense gold-and-platinum 
meshed bag and brought forth a little gold coin that 
was deposited in Kissy-GirPs palm. The girl, astonished 
and gauche, stared in open-mouthed confusion till, 
prompted by Madame Estelle’s “ Really, Madam is too 
kind,” she blushed and whispered with shy simplicity : 
“ Thank you very much.” 

“ That’s all right, my dear, but don’t spend it all on 
sweeties ; best buy something that’ll last,” said the 
kind soul, and then, gathering her belongings together, 
she bustled ponderously out of the shop and out of Kissy- 
Girl’s life, and Kissy remained to receive the sneers of 
the sales-ladies and Madame Estelle’s reprimand for he 
“ forwardness,” and then to put the hats back in the 
cupboards and their cardboard prisons. To stack the 
brass rods together and draw the holland, guipure-edged 
blinds, while the youth who was to put up the shutters 
stood outside on the pavement impatiently staring at 
her through the plate-glass windows, when she paused 
in her work and, unwrapping the swathing of tissue 
paper in which she had carefully folded it, stared de- 
lightedly at the little gold disc that looked so innocent . . . 

II 

One of the workroom hands — Polly was her un- 
distinguished name — waited for Kissy-Girl at the corner 
of the High Street. 

“ Well, you have been a time,” she grumbled crossly 
as Kissy hurried to join her, picking snippings of white 
cotton from her skirt as she half ran, half walked : a 
scrambling mode of progress. 


CROYDON 15 

“ Look,” said Kissy joyously, opening her hand under 
the other’s nose. 

“ My ! Where d’you get it ? ” was the astonished 
question. 

Kissy doubled her fist over the precious coin and, 
snatching her hand away, cradled it under her chin 
for an instant before taking one last glance at the trea- 
sure, and then finally hiding it in the inmost compart- 
ment of her shabby purse. 

“ I got it . . .” she said, and taking a deep breath 
and pausing dramatically before plunging into the story, 
told Polly “ just how ” it happened. 

When she arrived, breathlessly, at the end of the tale, 
Polly’s first comment was an echo of the indignant 
sales-lady’s : 

“ Well, you’ve got cheek and no mistake ! ” But her 
voice rang with admiration, not with blame, and Kissy 
began to feel uplifted. “ What did Madame say ? ” 
Polly added. 

“ Oh, she jawed before she let me put away — that’s 
why I’m late — and said things like that c’d happen once 
but not twice, and that anyway I was never, never , 
NEVAH to speak to customers, and if I did I wasn’t 
to say 6 you ’ to them. Silly, I call it ! Don’t you ? ” 

But Polly had no opinion on the subject, she was 
bursting with the great question. 

“ What’ll you do with it ? ” 

“ Give it to Aunt Liz of course ! ” 

Polly made a noise suggestive of disgust and contempt. 

“ I’ll always have to give her my wages . . . when 
I get any,” said Kissy in self-defence. 

“ That’s just it, this isn’t wages — how’s she to know 
you’ve got it unless you tell her ? ” 

“ Brrt I think I ought to tell her. She’s not any too 
sweet in her ways I know, but she’s always been good 
to me all right, she gives me my clothes and my outings, 


16 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

and she paid my premium to Madame so’d I learn a 
good trade.” 

“ You’re just a cure, Elizabeth Dalton, that’s what 
you are,” cried the disappointed Polly. “You told me 
once yourself there was twenty pounds a year coming 
to you when you’ll be twenty-one, and it ? s your aunt 
keeps it safe for you. D’you suppose it’s out of her 
pocket she buys your tuppen’apenny frocks an’ pays 
your premium ! It’s out uv those twenty quid. And 
as for those outings ! My, 1 wouldn’t care to live that 
kind uv Gay Life. Tram rides to the free Recreation 
Grounds on fine Sundays and threppenny seats at the 
4 Pictures ’ when it’s wet ! A lot of 4 outings ’ she treats 
you, I don't think ! " 

“ Well . . .” began Kissy ; but the other hurried on : 

“You never bring sweets to the shop ; but you do 
have your dip into our bags- -not that we grudge it I’m 
sure, dear,” she hastily added as Kissy flushed ; “ but 
there’s a good deal of spending in ten bob, and you might 
have paid off old debts to the girls. What d’you say 
to ices to-morrow for tea ? There’s that new place in 
George Street. John’ll fetch ’em in and take back the 
cups after we’re finished. You cud get fourpenny ones 
— there’s ten of us, you wouldn’t invite those uppish 
showroom girls, would you ? That ’ud be three an’ 
fourpence — Or we might have threppenny ones and 
some French pastry besides. It ’ud be a regular Al 
treat that any one ud be proud to stand. ICES ! Um — 
just think of it 1 Bang in the middle of a hot afternoon 
when you’ve been sewing and sewing hats for swells 
to wear at garden-parties, where they'll eat strawberries 
and cream and Nee-apolitan ices like slices of rainbow. 
It gives you a cold taste under your tongue just only 
to talk of it . . 

Kissy could no more have resisted the idea of standing 
an Al treat than Polly could have resisted cadging for it ! 


CROYDON IT 

“But what’ll I do with the rest of the money?” 
she asked, when Polly’s enthusiastic hugs were 
over. 

“ Put it aside for when you want it, stupid ; but I’ll 
tell you what, you might spend another bob next Satur- 
day night. My gentleman-friend’s taking me to a F6te 
down to his tennis club. It’s shilling tickets, and 
there’ll be refreshments and Ven-ee-shun lantens and 
dancing-— with a real band. My friend ’ll introduce you 
to partners all right. What price that after Auntie’s 
treat, eh ? ” 

Kissy-Girl was dazzled, the “ Ven-ee-shun lantens ” 
and the real band did it, but a sneaking doubt that 
maybe she would find these pleasures too overwhelming, 
prompted her to make one more objection. 

“ Aunt never lets me go out alone of nights ! ” 

“ Yes, she will if I ask her ! I’ll say there’ll be com- 
pany to our house, and Ma’s compliments, and may you 
stay to supper ? ” 

“ And s’posing Auntie meets your Ma ? ” 

Polly disposed of that weak-kneed objection with all 
the scorn due to it. Kissy-Girl lived in the suburbs 
of East Croydon, Polly in the heart of West Croydon. 
The antipodes. 

Therefore a little later, when Polly hopped in to the 
clanging tram that was to take her to meet the gentleman- 
friend of the tennis club, Kissy-Girl was pledged to the 
venture and, transgression being new to her, she was 
rather more anxious than elated as she thought of the 
riotous times coming. There was an uneasy crease 
between her eyes, and her heart beat faster than usual 
as she turned and started to rim home ; it was getting 
very late. 

As she passed the post office at the comer of her 
street she paused, hesitated, then, with a panic-stricken 
air of recklessness, she hurried into the building. 


18 


THE BROKEN LAUGH 


III 

It was deep dusk when Kissy finally reached home — 
one of those jerry-built truncated specimens of architec- 
ture made of spit and plaster that look more like a slice 
of house than an entire building ; she skirted the front 
and side and made her entrance by the scullery. 

She was met by a strong smell of yellow soap and 
coffee. By the kitchen window two small children were 
hunched over lesson books. They could not possibly 
see, but they pretended to. 

“ You'll catch it,” said one of them, looking up, and 
then crouching over her book precipitately as a firm 
tread tramped grimly down the passage. 

“ I’ll thank you,” began Kissy’s Aunt from the door, 
“ to tell me the meaning of this, my girl. Three-quarters 
of an hour late if it’s a minute.” She came into the 
kitchen, folded her hands energetically over her stomach, 
and waited. 

Kissy told, and the children, all pretence of study 
abandoned, listened, open-mouthed. Kissy brought her 
story to its climax with the proud boast : 

“ And she kept it on and wore it out of the shop and had 
the old one sent home ! ” 

It was not Aunt Liz’s nature to put up with boasting. 

“ I dare say she thought it wasn’t fine enough to keep 
for Sundays,” she disparaged, “ and I must say that 
showed a very forward spirit, Kissy^ ; it’s not many fine 
ladies ud put up with such ways from an apprentice.” 

There was a deep silence that lasted long enough to 
register three loud ticks from a sonorous cuckoo-clock, 
and several bubbling drips in the coffee pot, then : 

“ She gave me this,” said Kissy, with all the meek- 
ness of youth that has been thoroughly wet-blanketed. 

Two half-crowns clinked into Aunt Liz’s strong hand. 

“ Five shillings ! Well, I never. It’s a lot of money, 


CROYDON 1$ 

Kissy ” — and Aunt Liz spoke with heavy reluctance of 
some one who finds if difficult to pay a compliment — 
“ Kissy, you’re a good girl.” 

It was too dark to see whether Kissy blushed. 

IV 

Two of the slats of the Venetian blind that screened 
Kissy-GirPs window were broken, and an impertinent 
sunbeam, peering through, shone boldly on Kissy’s face 
with an air of treating the matter as rather a good joke. 

The girl moved uneasily. The patch of light shifted 
from her nose and mouth to her eyes and forehead. 
She muttered and made a little brushing gesture with 
the hand that was flung outside the bed on the sheets. 
The evidence of a summer night lay in the blanket and 
“ crazy- work ” coverlet that had been pushed over the 
foot of the bed and straggled to the floor. 

The sunbeam darted with mischievous persistence. 
The summer morning was too glorious for a cloud to 
come to Kissy-GirPs rescue. 

The skirmish was short and decisive, though at one 
moment it seemed almost as if Kissy would win ; she 
had so stirred on the pillow that the light hovered over 
her ear, and her eyes were again in the shadow, but a 
tiny breeze came frisking out of space, the blind stirred 
at the open window, and as the patch of sun, shining 
with more mischievous vehemence than ever, beat on 
Kissy’s closed lids, she rolled over and said “ O-o-oh ! ” 
It was the softest sigh ; then she rolled back, opened 
her eyes, blinked painfully, and said “ Bother ! ” very 
loudly. 

She sleepily sat up and, dangling her legs over the 
edge of the bed, slowly slid to the floor. The skimpy, 
outgrown night-gown slipped upwards, revealing her 
knees. Round, polished, childish knees, a little pathetic 
because they were so white. She pattered across the 


20 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

bare boards to the washstand and, snatching a towel 
from the rickety wooden towel-horse that rocked pro- 
testingly and finally fell drunkenly against the wall, 
pattered back to the window, where she hung the grey- 
white wisp of city -washed linen over the gap in the 
blind ; she hurried back into bed and, throwing herself 
back on the pillow, stretched luxuriously as if she had 
achieved the acme of comfort., then she closed her eyes. 

But Kissy’s rising had banished sleep as effectually 
as the sunbeam. 

She kicked at the sheet impatiently ; sprawled cross- 
ways in the bed, and looked at the clock. A cheap tin 
alarm-clock — usually set to rouse Kissy at six o’clock 
on weekdays — its severe black hands pointed to half- 
past seven. 

On Sundays, Kissy-Girl enjoyed the inestimable 
privilege of staying in bed till eight o’clock ; a grudging 
concession to her early rising other days and to her 
debut as prospective wage-earner, but an indulgence 
described by Aunt Liz as “ lazin’ away half the morn- 
ing 1 ” 

Kissy’s eyes roved possessively over the small closet 
she was so proud to call “ my room.” It was small 
and bare. To the whitewashed walls she had nailed : 
the soulful and smackable “ Bubbles,” picture post 
cards of Pauline Chase, Lord Kitchener, Baden Powell, 
Lily Elsie, “ Bobs,” and “ Caesar — the King’s dog ! ” 

A pink chintz curtain, whose bright colours had faded 
in vertical streaks, stretched across one corner and hid 
the pegs that supported Kissy’s everyday clothes. High- 
day-holiday garb lived in Aunt Liz’s cupboard under 
lock and key. A chest of drawers of chipped mahogany 
supported a small adjustable looking-glass, the screws 
of which were so worn that Kissy always had to wedge 
the mirror in position with a wad of paper — or a pair 
of stockings — before it would consent to reflect anything 


CROYDON 21 

except the floor or the ceiling. The deal wash-hand 
stand and towel-horse were varnished and grained to 
imitate some wonderfully ornate kind of wood ; the 
result looked more like a good imitation of orange marma- 
lade, gone a little mouldy, than anything else. The 
floor was bare but for an oil-cloth mat in front of the 
wash-hand stand, and one chair sufficed for Kissy’s 
needs. 

This chair had started life as a frivolous gilt affair 
with a fragile cane bottom, but by the time it reached 
Kissy’s domain it had been painted brown, and a hard 
wooden seat bored with a circular pattern of little holes 
had been nailed into position with brass-topped nails. 

As Kissy’s eye fell on the chair she smiled. In reality 
it was not at the chair, but at the frock that hung limply 
over it, that she smiled. Her best white muslin frock 
with the old rose moir6 belt, and the edging of real 
Valenciennes lace to the low collar : a frock much too 
good to be worn “ just for spending the evening at 
Polly’s place,” had declared Aunt Liz as she took it 
from the cupboard the night before and gave it grudg- 
ingly to Kissy. 

Kissy sat up in bed and with a sudden, shy, move- 
ment hid her face in her hands. “ Of course ... it 
was last night ...” and she tingled and blushed. 

Behind closed lids, in the darkness of her hot little 
palms, Kissy saw, in catherine-wheel flashes of fire, the 
bright coloured lights of the Venetian lanterns that had 
so enchanted her. In her ears rang the memories of 
mawkish waltz tunes and sentimental coon songs. The 
plaintive wailing of a violin that was heard from a dis- 
tance while the pungent night smell of mown hay that 
has basked in the sun all day, brought the easy emotional 
tears of innocent foolish girlhood to her eyes — then 
other memories, other sensations, rushed overwhelm- 
ingly through brain and body. 


22 


THE BROKEN LAUGH 


V 

At first Kissy had felt entirely “ out of it ” at the 
Fete. She was utterly disconcerted by the “ young 
gentlemen ” introduced to her by Polly and Polly’s 
young man. They all asked her if she’d seen that week’s 
Musical Comedy Company at the Theatre Royal and 
what she thought of the Fete ; to which she replied that : 

(a) She had never been to the Theatre Royal ; 

(b) It was fine. 

Having made such bright overtures the young gentle- 
men relaxed all efforts and expected, in their turn, to 
be entertained. They were used to flamboyant girls 
in indiscreet blouses. Girls with powder-puffs concealed 
in lace edged handkerchiefs that smelled of violent 
oppopanax or nauseous Trifle incarnat. To shop-girls 
who knew what was what, who could use their eyes 
and make a fellow feel he was an out-of-stock-sized 
pebble on the beach. Solemn-eyed flappers in white 
muslin who had never read the front page jokes of the 
Winning Post , who only knew the polka and the barn- 
dance, who shook their head and blushed when asked 
to waltz, and admitted utter ignorance of the tw r o-step, 
were undesirable riddles and not worth deciphering. 
So, after her fourth partner abandoned her under the 
plea of fetching her an ice, and, like his predecessors, 
did not return, Kissy remained, plantee la, forlornly in 
a corner. 

The site of the Tennis Club was a mere fraction of a 
field hedged off from a checker-board of other fields. 
The Pavilion, modestly rustic, stood at the north side 
of the high wire-netting that enclosed four tennis courts. 
In the centre of the field was a cricket pitch, the wickets 
of which had not been improved by the rolling that 
had been undertaken by giggling girls wearing Louis XV 
heels. On the evening of the Fete, panache paper 


CROYDON 28 

lanterns hung at inexpensively discreet distances round 
the edge of the low roof and in the doorway and windows 
of the Pavilion ; also on the ropes linking the four poles 
that marked off the dancing floor that had been put 
down for the occasion. The orchestra — piano, violin, 
and cornet — performed in the veranda, and was sus- 
tained by little dark bottles that clinked together in a 
pail of tepid water that had” once been ice. Inside the 
Pavilion were refreshments ; that ranged from anchovy 
paste sandwiches to ices, and bottled beer to an unholy 
mixture that the hired waiter, in connivance with the 
club steward, called “claret cup” — a mixture that 
nevertheless justified its existence by being cold, sweet, 
and insidious. 

Polly, in the generous mood of a girl who dangles an 
overcrowded dance programme from her elbow, sent 
her partner to Kissy with a brimming glass of the sticky 
stuff. The boy was in a hurry — he wanted to get back 
to Polly — and the waiter being busy he had seized a 
large tumbler and helped himself. 

When Kissy found herself again alone with a fragile 
sponge cake in one hand and a clammy cold glass that 
dripped in the other, she became conscious of but one 
desire ; to get away from the mocking or pitying stares 
of the brilliant young ladies that swung past her in the 
arms of equally brilliant young gentlemen, who neither 
mocked nor pitied Kissy, but only hastily averted their 
eyes — especially those who had already danced with 
her. 

Precautiously, stiffly — the glass was so very full — 
Kissy sidled towards the reassuring darkness outside the 
halo of golden light that filtered from the lanterns. 

There was no moon, yet the darkness was only dark 
relatively to the illuminations of the Fete ; in the dis- 
tance tall billowy trees stood out clearly against the 
pale summer night sky ; great banks of trees that were 


24 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

broken by remote angular shapes of masonry from which 
lights twinkled tinily. 

“ Swells’ houses ! ” Kissy subconsciously recognized, 
classified, and disposed of them as she would have 
passing trams she had no wish to ride in. 

Wandering towards the hedge that hemmed in the 
field she stumbled against a tuft of grass ; the liquid 
in the glass slopped over, splashed, and dripped. Craning 
forward so that her frock should not be stained, Kissy 
gingerly licked the drips that were chasing each other 
down the sides of the tumbler and collecting in big, 
dangerous drops on the lower edge. 

The taste was — Kissy had no means of describing it 
except as scrumptious. She sipped tentatively. Again, 
then more boldly ; the glass would be easier to carry 
now. 

In all proper hedges that guard property there should 
be a gap ; there was in this one. 

On the other side of the gap was a hayfield ; the 
grass had been mown, but not stacked ; it lay in great 
soft heaps, smelling of clover and imprisoned sunshine. 
Kissy kicked a heap together near the hedge, sat down, 
ate her cake and finished the pink mixture in the glass. 
Then she snuggled back on her soft couch in perfect con- 
tentment to wait there till it would be time to go home. 

Out of one of the “ swells* houses ” a swell came 
strolling. From the terrace, where he had lolled over 
an after-dinner cigar, he saw the lights and faintly 
heard the strains of a Berger waltz. Lazily he “ sup- 
posed ” that “ some of those low Croydon shopkeepers 
were havin’ a bean-feast,” and that there might be a bit 
of fun to be got out of a girl or two over there ! He 
was the kind of man — and he may be a lord, a bourgeois, 
or a brewer — who imagines that girls — of what he calls 
the lower class — exist merely for a chap’s amusement. 


CROYDON 25 

The sort of man whose wife or mother cannot keep a 
young or pretty maid, and whose typist — if he be in 
business — is changed every few months. 

He was a cad, and as is often the way of cads he was 
superficially, and especially to such an excessively un- 
sophisticated girl as Kissy, a very pleasing person. He 
saw Kissy long before she knew anyone was in the field. 
She was staring up at the sky and vaguely wondering 
why she felt so happy. Happier than she had ever felt 
in all her life. The music was so beautiful, the hay 
smelled so sweet, there was such a delicious, cool feeling 
in the air. And her heart was beating in such a strange 
manner. Echoing in her throat, in her wrists ; she put 
her hand over it to try and still the tumult ; the ges- 
ture cupped the little firm breast that rose and fell to 
the rhythm of her softly drawn breath. Kissy snatched 
her hand away and wondered why she felt ashamed. 
Then again she wondered why that very sensation of 
shame was so exquisite. 

She stretched herself as she lay, then relaxed with a 
soft sigh ; the watching cad in the dinner-jacket smiled 
sickeningly, and, having read his Huysmans, he remem- 
bered Celine Vatard’s cry : “ Si les hommes savaient , on 
serait perdue avant qu'ils ne croient que c'est possible .” 
Then he spoke. The syrupous words were wisely chosen 
with all the hypocritical prudence of the professional 
love-hunter. 

Kissy’s mood had hopelessly handicapped her. She 
was beaten before she knew the fight had commenced ; 
besides she never knew it was a fight. By degrees she 
was drugged, as he meant her to be drugged, by the 
anaesthetic of caressing words 

VI 

A sudden tremor shook Kissy’s shoulders under the 
scanty night-gown ; she lifted her face from her hands 


20 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

and looked at the frock again, with no smile this time, 
but a troubled glance of inquiry. How crumpled it 
was, and there was a green stain near the hem as if it 
had been trampled into the rich short grass of a freshly 
cut lawn ; what would Aunt Liz say ? 

Was the damage reparable ? Obviously. But could 
it be repaired without Aunt Liz’s knowledge ? 

Kissy started to get up ; but before she could accom- 
plish the gesture that would place both feet firmly on 
the floor, a door opened downstairs. Was it the kitchen 
door ? Kissy listened with straining ears and staring 
eyes. It wa3, and the even louder than usual step that 
rocked the ill-built stairs of the little house proclaimed 
that Aunt Liz was coming up. 

Instinctively Kissy felt that Aunt Liz knew. How 
she had come to the knowledge mattered little, there 
had been many people at the Fete. Possibly a neigh- 
bour’s daughter had recognized her, and the news had 
flown over the back-garden fences — as news flies in such 
neighbourhoods. 

Kissy was aghast at her own foolishness ! Why had 
she listened to Polly. How could she ever have hoped 
to do anything forbidden without Aunt Liz finding out ? 
During the past days the thing had seemed possible, 
but now, with that menacing tread sounding ever louder 
on the stairs and in the passage outside, Kissy realized 
how foolish she had been . . . 

But she was not sorry. Not yet. Aunt Liz might scold 
harder than ever before, but it was worth it, nothing could 
ever quite spoil the brightness of the night before. 

The door was flung open. Aunt Liz stood for a 
moment leaning against it while she recovered her 
breath. An enveloping gingham apron hid a Sunday 
frock of dark red cloth, her cuffs were unbuttoned and 
folded back, showing a grey sateen lining and the rough 
edges of the seam. 


CROYDON 27 

Kissy sat on the edge of the bed and nervously tried 
to pull the skimpy night-gown down to her ankles, then 
she became motionless and stared at her toes. Though 
she was half sick with apprehension, she found that she 
was able to think that she ought to have washed those 
toes last night, for there were grey marks of dust on 
them — who’d ever have thought . there’d be dust in 
grass ! 

Then Aunt Liz entered the room, slammed the door, 
and spoke : 

“ So this” she said, with deliberate roughness, “ is 
all the thanks I get for bringing up a base-born love- 
child as if it was my own flesh and blood . . . ! ” The 
tirade continued, an arraignment that amplified and 
embellished as it grew. It was a very comprehensive 
tirade, and threw many side-lights on Aunt Liz’s ideas 
of education, religion, and gratitude. 

Unfortunately Kissy did not listen ; the ideas were not 
new to her and, besides, she was thinking of something 
else. Aunt Liz’s voice was always gruff, her remarks 
nearly always began with accusations, and Kissy, not 
having looked up, had not seen the ominous light in her 
aunt’s eyes or the grimmer twist than usual to the grim 
mouth. 

The expression “ love-child ” had struck Kissy’s ear 
and held her imagination. 

Kissy knew little of her dead mother and nothing of 
her father. Aunt Liz had always answered, “ There’s 
nothing to tell ; they’re just dead, that’s all about it.” 

But Kissy somehow thought that her parents had been 
rich. There was a box full of soft white things — “ im- 
proper garments ” Aunt Liz called them — that had be- 
longed to the mother. It was from one of those garments 
that the real lace on Kissy’s best frock had come. There 
was a gold brooch set with pearls, a little bunchy ermine 
muff, and a funny high-collared cape that went with it ; 


28 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

rich silks and satins that sent forth a sweet, almost 
edible scent in wafting elusive whiffs whenever Aunt 
Liz rummaged among their folds. But Aunt Liz rarely 
rummaged, and when she did it was with gestures that 
were more brusque than ever. If Kissy tried to re- 
main in the room at such time, or to peep over her 
shoulder, she would call her “ Miss Pry ” and send her 
away ; so Kissy always gazed discreetly from behind 
the crack in the door and wondered why Aunt Liz 
hurried so and banged down the lid so loudly, and then 
always locked it in such an unexpectedly gentle, regret- 
ful manner. 

“ Love-child ! ” Aunt Liz had said. How pretty it 
sounded. Kissy thought of those ubiquitous picture 
post cards that are sold in the stationery shops. Tinted, 
sentimental, photographic monstrosities that portray the 
amorous career of dummy-like young men in frock- 
coats and pomaded moustaches, and young girls in 
fussy blouses and elaborately dressed h$ir. They wander 
hand in hand through a series of gawky poses, and it 
was of the last picture that Kissy thought, that last 
picture, after the orange-blossom and wedding-frock 
one, when they lean lovingly over a be-ribboned, lace- 
smothered cradle with a Nunc dimittis expression on 
their inane salmon-pink faces. 

To Kissy those post cards were the very essence of 
refinement and love. 

What could the words love-child mean except that 
Kissy, as a child, had been surrounded by love ? As 
she thought of the frock-coated father, the ever-smiling 
\wax-doll-faced mother, and the baby in the chocolate- 
box cradle, she smiled and rocked herself in an ecstasy 
of glad imaginings. 

Aunt Liz saw the smile, saw the happy cuddling 
movement, and thought, therefore, that she saw im- 
penitent defiance. It was impossible for her to realize 


CROYDON 29 

at the moment — or later, even more than confusedly 
— that Kissy had been utterly deaf to her rambling 
peroration. 

“ You brazen bastard, you ! ” she screamed. “ It ud 

serve you right if ” but the gesture completed the 

sentence before the words and rendered the menace an 
accomplished fact. 

Kissy covered her stinging cheek with a hand that 
seemed almost too heavy to lift because of the pulse 
that beat so leadenly in the wrist. The pain of the 
blow was nothing, but it was the look in Aunt Liz’s 
face, and the horrible sound of a word that she recognized 
as being the greatest insult of slum-land, that made her 
heart throb in her body with those sickening jerks — 
and then the throbbing of her heart in throat and body 
and wrists made her think of last night, and because 
of last night the insult seemed even more horrible than 
before. 

There was such a horror-struck panic in the eyes that 
gazed questioningly at Aunt Liz that the woman’s 
hardness broke, and suddenly crouching on the edge 
of the low bed by Kissy, she put her elbows on to her 
knees and wept. She wept as she did everything else, 
violently and brusquely. Then she dried her eyes, blew 
her nose with scrubbing thoroughness, and made the 
nearest approach to an apology that she could achieve. 

“ I didn’t ought to have said that to my own sister’s 
child ! I dunno what took me. Listen, Kissy, you’re 
getting near grown-up now, and it’s time you’d know 
about your poor mother.” 

Then she told her, while downstairs Aunt Liz’s hus- 
band and children, for the first time in their experience, 
waited in front of naked plates and uncooked bacon 
sprawling flabbily in the clean frying-pan, while a big 
black kettle querulously boiled itself to emptiness. 


CHAPTER II 
The Millar Girl 
I 

“ When I was young,” began Aunt Liz, with the air of 
alluding to some prehistoric period, “ I was in service. 
And service, if you’re honest and ’ave more conscience 
than what your Missis ’as, is worse than most things. 
But I had to bear with it. Mother wasn’t strong enough 
to go on charing like she used to till she get rheumatics, 
and father, he used to like a good many drops more 
than was good for ’im, and there was Molly — your Ma 
that came to be — still at school, and so it was my wages 
as had to do for us all. Your mother, Kissy, was just 
the prettiest little thing I ever saw. A bit your colour, 
but her hair was just a mass of curls and she had the 
loveliest blue eyes, and was that smart at her books 
that it ’ud have been a crime not to put money aside 
so she’d be able to keep on with ’er lessons later than 
most. 

“ I’d been in my first place five years, and if the Missis 
hadn’t been a born nagger there wouldn’t ’ave been one 
real thing in all that time that she could honestly ’ave 
raised ’er voice about. Then I got ill. Her little boy, 
and a terror ’e was too for bringing muddy boots into a 
clean passidge, caught the measles and I nursed ’im. 
He soon got over it, but the very day ’e was to have 
his first boiled egg I went bang off in a faint just as I’d 
finished cutting the fingers for it. 

“ And I was bad, I can tell you ! It was measles and 
in-floo-enza ! I’d nursed that young one, but they sent 
30 


THE MILLAR GIRL 81 

me to the ’ospital ! If you got no worries it’s all right 
to be in a nospital. It’s clean and it’s warm, and the 
doctors and nurses talk to you as if you were a real 
person instead of a something that’s being paid. But 
I couldn’t enjoy it for worrying whether they’d pay my 
wages — the Missis hadn’t been near me — and keep my 
place open, and I was that lonesome for Molly that I 
couldn’t let come see me for fear of infection. She was 
such a loving little thing. Always hanging round you, 
and hugging you, and wanting to be cuddled. She was 
a regular kissy-girl too, Kissy, and that’s why I’ve 
always tried to get you out of them habits and I never 
encouraged you when you was young, knowing now that 
trouble may come of it.” 

“ But you liked it, didn’t you ? ” asked Kissy. 

“ That’s got nothing to do with it ! When you’ve 
got to bring up young ones as ’ul have to earn their 
livings it’s better to bring ’em up on kicks than cuddles ! 
And don’t you interrupt me again or I shan’t tell you 
any more. . . . One visiting day mother came. It was 
raining, so I knew there was something up, otherwise 
she wouldn’t ’uv ventured out because of her pains, 
not to mention the fear of carryin’ ’fection to Molly. 

“ I thought p’raps father ’ud had the D.T.’s again. 
But it was worse than that. The Missis ’ad send my 
box and my month’s wages home to mother, writing as 
how she couldn’t be without a servant all that time. 
My box and my month ! Not a five-shilling piece be- 
sides, though we were only a week off Christmas ! Not 
even a thank-you or a hope-you’ll-soon-be-better ! I 
can tell you, Kissy, it gave me a funny kind of a feeling, 
a sort of sour creepy feeling. I c’ld ’ave killed that 
woman. 

“ The only good minit I had for six months after that 
was when I came out of the ’ospital and Molly put ’er 
arms round my neck and kissed me ! I’d started on a 


82 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

spell of bad luck that ’ud have made you think I’d 
broken all the looking-glasses in the house where I’d 
got the chuck so mean, instead of never so much as a 
breakfast -cup. Honest, Kissy, never so much as a 
breakfast-cup , as I’m a married woman ! 

“ I think I must ’ave done about eight places in those 
six months, and most of my wages went in stamps and 
’bus fares and treppences to porters for my box, and 
I wasn’t able to buy a pair of bronze shoes that I’d 
wanted Molly to have for the breaking-up party to 
her school 1 

“ At one place they made me sleep in the kitchen 
where there were blackbeetles as big as mice ! ” 

The bed rocked as Kissy and Aunt Liz shuddered in 
unison. 

“ At another house they ’d got a dog ; a big sloppety 
beast with sick eyes. It used to get all the food that I 
didn’t, and do none of the work for it that I did ! At a 
place in the country over Whyteleafe way they expected 
me to look after the garden in my spare time. There 
was ten in the family, and the only help I had was a 
char who used to come in Saterday night when there 
was company. At last, I ’ad to demean myself by 
taking service with a nactress who worked at Music-’alls. 
I could have gone there sooner — her cook was an old 
friend of mother’s and knew what a worker I was — 
but I couidn’t bring myself to, somehow, as I’d always 
had to do with respectable folk till then, and every one 
knows that actresses aren’t considered that ! Not that, 
I’ll say it fair, I really ever saw anything I didn’t ought 
to have, except that she smoked cigarettes and wore 
thin stockings that weren’t decent, and always drank 
champagne for dinner on Sundays whether there was 
visitors or not. She was married all right, too, but she 
paid her husband to live away from her. They said he 
was a bad lot. I never saw ’im, so I don’t know. 


THE MILLAR GIRL 38 

“ She lived in London, but sometimes she’d go on 
tour, and at Christmas time she’d always rent a fur- 
nished house wherever she was to play in pantomime, 
and then cook and I ’ud go with her. The second 
Christmas I was with her she was engaged to play Princi- 
pal Boy down here in Croydon. That's how she came 
to see Molly. 

“ Molly was ten years old then and small for her age, 
and I’d been letting her have dancing lessons, and to 
see her doing the fan dance in the little Jap silk frock 
I’d had pleated for her, her little feet going pit-a-pat 
so neat and graceful ; her arms a-waving with the silver 
bangle she’d had for her birthday because she was top 
of her history class, glittering as it slid up and down, 
her long curls jumping and swinging all round her head ; 
she was prettier than any picture that ever ’as or ever 
will be painted. 

“ And Miss Montefiore thought so too. One Sunday 
afternoon Molly had come to tea. We’d got permission 
all right. Miss Monty — that’s how we called her ontre- 
noos , and so they did at the theatre — was very generous 
in that line and with cast-off clothes and matiny tickets, 
and after tea I got Molly to show cook her new steps. 
Cook had got a fine new accordeon out of a Tit-Bits 
missing-letters competition that she’d guessed right ” 

“ What’s a naccordeon ? ” asked Kissy. 

“ It’s a concertence with a sort of piano-notes arrange- 
ment at one end. Don’t interrupt — and she could play 
‘ Queen-of-My-Heart Waltz ’ on it, which was what 
Molly’s new dance went to ! Miss Monty was out. At 
least she was when we started, but she came in with 
her latchkey, and, hearing the music, she came right 
down to the kitchen, and, if you’d believe it, although 
Molly saw her standing in the doorway behind cook and 
me, she never so much as turned a hair, but finished 

her dance and made her bow. Bold, but not a bit brazen, 

c 


84 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

and when Miss Monty clapped her hands and said 
‘ Bravo ! ’ she blushed as pretty as could be and put her 
finger in her mouth. 

44 After that Miss Monty wouldn’t leave me be, for 
they wanted a child dancer at the theatre. It was 
Dalton this and Dalton that — she called me by my 
surname ; that’s the way it’s done when you’re smart 
enough ” 

44 I know,” said Kissy, “ customers at the shop are 
like that too ; they say : 4 My mayde Mullins will sew 
it on,’ lah-de-dah, just like that, don’t cha know ! ” 

“ Don’t make mock of your betters, Kissy,” reproved 
Aunt Liz, 44 and don't interrupt ! It was 4 Dalton, think 
of the salary she’d earn,’ or 4 It needn’t stop her schooling, 
Dalton,’ or 4 You know she’d be looked after in the 
theatre all right, Dalton ; we’re stricter than you 
think ! ’ Then Molly got to hear of it — cook it was 
that told her. Miss Monty, she was too fair to have 
gone behind my back — and that was the end of it. 

44 Molly went to the theatre and she made a success. 
A 4 hit ’ they call it. And things were never the same 
afterwards. She was too loving, Molly was. She’d 
love everybody. And everybody loved her. Miss 
Monty made Molly call her Aunt Alice. It seemed 
funny that I should have to go on calling her Miss ! . . . 
There was no one to fetch Molly home from the theatre 
of nights, so she used to come back in Miss Monty’s 
carriage and spend the night. She slept with me ; and 
every night she’d tell me about 4 the show ’ while she’d 
drink her cup of hot milk and eat her supper. I used 
to brush her hair, just the same as I did for Miss Monty. 
She’d tell me how the people clapped and called ongoore 
to her to do her bit of dancing over again. She used 
to get chocolates and flowers, and an old gentleman 
sent her a doll with clothes that all took off. It even 
had white satin stays and lace on its chemise. And 


THE MILLAR GIRL 35 

sometimes she’d ask me mightn’t she keep back five 
shillings — she was earning thirty shillings a week and 
it all went into the Savings Bank — to treat the children 
who danced with her in the transformation scene ” — 
Kissy-Girl rocked in sympathetic joy — “ she’d have 
given the clothes off her back, Molly would. 

“ When the pantomime ended and we w r ent back to 
London Molly was like a dog that’d lost its master. 

“ Mother kept writing to say as how she ’d lost all 
pleasure in her books, and how, whenever she could 
slip out, she’d go and hang round the theatre ! 

“ I didn’t know what to do. Miss Monty said for 
her to come up to London and learn her steps properly 
at the Millar Dancing School down Kennington Road 
way. I didn’t like that. Croydon isn’t the country 
by a long way, but it’s more country than London, 
specially London down Kennington way. But Molly 
got worse than ever and began to refuse ’er food, so 
I gave in and she came. And it was just as well I did, 
for a while after Mother got taken ill for the last time, 
and I had to go down to Croydon for the funeral only 
a month after Molly came up to London. 

“ Mother’s death sobered up father for a while and 
he went up to Yorkshire where his brother lived. A 
richish man by all accounts ; he put father into a 
home where he had to pay something for his keep, and 
father stayed there — a good riddance it was for us, 
too — till he got bad with locomoter-attacks-yer, and 
then he died too. 

“ Molly lived at the school, but she’d come to St. 
John’s Wood and spend Sundays with me. I’d be that 
happy looking forwards on Saturdays I’d not know 
what to do. And Molly was happy to see her old Liz, 
too, and as loving as ever, but still, I didn’t never need 
to tell her twice to fetch her hat when evening came. 
Molly went to the school in April. By December she 


86 


THE BROKEN LAUGH 

was already one of the best of the littlest dancers, so 
Pa Millar let her go into Panto again. She was put 
in a troupe they called the Brixton Babes, all little 
ones, and Molly, she got more presents sent round from 
the 4 front ’ than all the rest put together. 

“For two years she went wherever the Babes were 
sent. All over the provinces. Some day I’ll show you 
the picture pos’ cards she sent me from all the different 
towns. But she wasn’t dancing all the time ; besides, 
even when the Babes were 4 on the road ’ they’d have 
a school-teacher as well as a wardrobe-mistress along 
with them, and Molly learned her lessons and to pick 
up her notes at sight, and they taught her to speak 
like a little lady. Refined she was and very quiet. 

“ Till then Molly ’d always been a shrimp of a thing, 
then suddenly, when she got past her twelfth birthday, 
she began to grow ; so Pa Millar took her out of the 
Babes and put her in a No. 1 Continental Troupe. I 
thought I’d have died when Molly says to me one Sunday, 
all excited and happy : 4 Liz, we’re going to Homburg 
on Monday ! ’ 4 Where’s that,’ said I, 4 Midlands or 

South Coast,’ and she laughed at me and called me an 
ignorant old deah ! 4 It’s in Germany,’ she said, 4 and 

we’re going in a boat ; it’ll be awful fun, but the girls 
say it’s beas ... I mean horrid, if you’re sick.’— I can 
remember even now how she checked an’ corrected 
herself for using a word the teacher had said wasn’t 
ladylike. 

44 So I put on my hat and we took a ’bus, and I went 
and told Pa Millar as how I wouldn’t have Molly taken 
off to foreign lands where goodness knows what might 
happen. And Pa Millar looked at me in his slow fishy 
way over his spectacles, and said, 4 And how will you 
prevent it, my dear ? ’ 

44 You see, I’d had to sign a paper when I let Molly 
go to the school saying as how, in exchange for her 


THE MILLAR GIRL 37 

keep and her lessons, Molly would have to work for him 
till she was twenty-one, and how, when she’d begin to 
earn a salary from the managers, he’d never pay her 
more than twenty shillings a week, no matter how much 
it was. No wonder the old man was rich. So Molly 
went abroad ; and sometimes I wouldn’t see her for 
six or seven months on end. I got used to it after a 
while, and the strange-looking shops and trams on the 
picture post cards. But I couldn’t sleep of nights for a 
week the first time the Cherry Girls — that was the troupe 
she was in then — went to Paris. 

“ It was at that time that your Uncle Tom started 
courting me, and he used to be that jealous because I’d 
talk of nothing but Molly when we were walking out ! 
But Molly wrote to me that the wardrobe- mistress in 
charge of the troupe was a caution ! So strict that they 
couldn’t do anything they wanted — she didn’t say what 
they wanted — and that, outside of the theatre, they 
were having a rotten time of it ; but that she’d never 
had such beautiful chocolates sent her as there was there ! 
I could ’uv kissed that wardrobe-mistress. 

“ Molly came home at Christmas in time to go to 
Manchester for the pantomime. She was seventeen 
then, and had her curls tied up in a bunch with a big 
ribbon on her neck. She looked like a lady ; and she 
was quiet and carried herself well, and had beautiful 
table mariners, and always buttoned her gloves before 
leaving the house like I’ve taught you to do exactly as I 
learned it all from her. So, seeing what a grand little sister 
I’d got, I began to feel like bettering myself too. I was 
getting on for thirty then and Tom was pressing me hard. 
He was a Croydon man, too, and he thought he could get 
a steady job at the gasworks in his old town. We both 
had savings, Miss Monty promised to give me some house 
linen and cutl’ry, and so we decided we’d get married 
if he got the job — he did get it and here we are. 


88 


THE BROKEN LAUGH 

“ After the pantomime was over, Pa Millar gave Molly 
leave to stay with us a week, after that she had to go 
back to the school again. Then in May she was in a 
London West End show for a couple of months. Tom 
and I went up to see her at a matinee. On the stage 
she had her hair down again, and in her little short 
frock and fluffy petticuts she looked just like the little 
one she was when she danced in Miss Monty’s kitchen — 
and if only she hadn’t ! 

“ One Sunday when she came down to spend the day, 
she was wearing a gold curb bracelet. I asked her pretty 
sharp where she got it, because, seeing as I made her 
put her money in the Post Office every treasury day, 
all except half-a-crown a week for sweeties and gloves 
and to treat the other girls — I used to buy all her clothes, 
and pretty clothes they were, too — I know she couldn’t 
have paid for it herself. 

“ 4 1 don’t know, Lizzie dear,’ ” she said ; and she 
didn’t. 

“ There wasn’t any message nor name nor anything 
on the box, and the stage-door man said he didn’t re- 
member who brought it. The only thing Molly thought, 
was that perhaps it might be a gentleman she’d often 
seen in the theatres where she’d been dancing. A tall, 
thin man with a white face, who always stared at her 
all the time she was on, but never sat near enough for 
her to see whether his hair was grey or only fair. She’d 
seen him in Berlin and in Brussels, and most nights 
in Paris that autumn, and now every day he was at 
the Palladium. But he’d never written or made a sign 
or anything, only just looked and looked and looked. 
And when she’d peep from the wings while the rest 
of the show was going on, he’d be reading a newspaper, 
politely, folded small in his hand, or he’d go out and 
walk about the promenooir or even sit where he was 
and doze. It was the dozing that made her think maybe 


39 


THE MILLAR GIRL 

he was grey and elderish. She said as -how some of the 
girls had admirers who’d come to pretty near most 
performances. And as he never seemed to look at any 
of the other girls she pretended to herself that he was 
her fellow like, and that the sweets and flowers she’d 
get were from him. I gave her a good talking to that 
day, and made Tom speak to her too, and she cried and 
said she hadn’t done anything. Well, no more she had. 
We didn’t even know for sure if he had sent the presents ; 
and, as Molly said, if a cat can look at a king a man can 
look at a dancer. That’s mostly what dancers and men 
are made for ! Maybe, but I made Molly promise not 
to wear the bangle on the stage all the same. 

“ In October she went to Paris with a troupe they 
called the Sunshine Girls, and they danced at a place 
called the Folies-Berg£res ” — Aunt Liz pronounced it 
Polly’s Baregers, and Kissy wondered what on earth 
bare “ gers ” were ! — “ in a play called the Revoo ! 

“ They hadn’t the same wardrobe-mistress this time, 
and I could tell by Molly’s letters that the new one 
wasn’t nearly so particular as the old. Molly was all 
the time talking of the shops and the tea places she’d 
been to with some of the other girls. Then one day 
she wrote that the gentleman had turned up again, 
and that one of the girls at the theatre knew a friend 
who knew him. He was a Russian gentleman and quite 
young — so it was fair he was, not white — and that he 
was married, but that he was very unhappy because 
his wife was mad. He had a name I can’t say, all w’s 
and k’s, though of course I’ve got it written down, so 
you can learn the spelling some day, and he was a Count. 

“ I wrote and told Molly to be careful, that if ever he 
tried to talk to her at the stage door she wasn’t to answer, 
but to walk straight past so that he’d understand she 
was a respectable girl who’d wish for nothing to do with 
strange men. But Molly never answered, and I was so 


40 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

anxious that I didn’t know what to do, and being in a 
delicate state of health for the first time just then, Tom 
wrote to Molly and gave her a thorough good blowing 
up. For a fortnight we got no news, and I wrote to 
Pa Millar in London and he didn’t answer either, and I 
was getting so ^worried I felt like going to Paris myself 
when one morning a letter came. I was in the passage 
when the postman knocked. The envelope fell into the 
box and flopped out on to the floor, address-side down 
on the oil-cloth ; but I knew it was Molly. I picked 
it up. It was her writing all right, but there was a 
different sort of stamp on it and the picture of a hotel 
place covered with little windows with a row of trees in 
tubs in front of it, so I knew that something was wrong. 

“ I went into the kitchen and sat down to open it. 
I sort of felt it wouldn’t be safe to read it standing up 
in my condition. I was right enough. Molly had been 
and gone and done it. She was at a hotel in Italy, 
and ” — Aunt Liz spoke in a mysterious, horror-struck 
whisper — “ she was living with that man ! ” 

II 

In the short silence that followed, Kissy-Girl was 
acutely uncomfortable ; she felt that she ought to make 
some comment in keeping with this sensational dis- 
closure, but the right words would not come ; the only 
question she really wanted to make was, “ Were they 
staying in the town where they have gondolas ? ” and 
that was, she felt, so irrelevant, she did not care to ask 
it. It was just as well. Aunt Liz was deep in the 
thoughts of the past, and again she was living through 
the nausea of the moment when she realized that Molly 
was — no longer Molly. Then, as now, Aunt Liz thought 
of her own love affair, of Tom’s brutal directness, and 
because Tom was crude, Aunt Liz imagined that all 
men were crude, and shuddered accordingly. 


THE MILLAR GIRL 41 

“ Children don’t know how their elders feel about 
’em,” she said a few seconds later, in a thick husky 
whisper that made Kissy want to cough and clear her 
throat, “ they’re there, just playing about, and you’re 
planning how to save a penny here and tuppence there 
to put by for a pair of party shoes or a new doll, and 
then suddenly you’ve got to let out their tucks and 
buy ’em side-combs, and before they’ve had time to 
use up their first packet of hair-pins there’s a fellow 
after ’em. It’s bad enough to see ’em married, but to 
have a girl go off like Molly — Molly and a man ; it fair 
turned me sick.” 

Kissy wondered if Aunt Liz would notice the slow 
blush that had crept over her whole body and flamed 
in her cheeks, scorching her eyes ; but Aunt Liz’s blank 
stare was probing the past, and Kissy was able to cool 
her hands on the cold iron bars of the bed and hold 
them calmingly to her hot face. 

“ How in love she must have been,” she said, not 
realizing that she was voicing her own defence rather 
than her unknown mother’s. 

“ Love ain’t everything ,” answered Aunt Liz uncom- 
promisingly, “ and the sooner you get that into your 
head the better, Kissy my girl. See where it landed 
your poor Ma, my little Molly that was ! In ’er grave, 
and she wasn’t yet twenty. At first I wouldn’t answer 
the letters she sent me ; but after a while I just had to. 
But not regular-once-a-week, like in the old times ; 
more like twice in three months, and at holiday times 
like Christmas and August bank-holidays, which hap- 
pened to be her birthday too. For two years they 
travelled about, but they never come to England, and 
then Molly wrote that she was going to have a baby 
and as how Sacha — that was his Christian name, though 
it never sounded Christian to me — was half crazy, he 
was so pleased. A little before her time came she wrote 


42 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

again. It was the last letter I ever had from her ; at 
the bottom of the last page she wrote : ” — Aunt Liz 
closed her eyes and recited with slow, precise, solemnity 
— “ 4 1 am sometimes afraid of what is before me ; perhaps 
I am going to be punished for having been so happy in 
my wickedness. . . . Please give my love to Tom and 
keep for yourself a sweet kiss from your loving little 
sister Molly.’ That was all. Three weeks after you 
were born and she died. Before she died she said I was 
to have you. 

“That man brought you here himself. He was tall 
and thin and grand without trying to be, and his face 
was like going into a cemetery on an autumn afternoon. 
It hushed you to look at his eyes. He spoke very slow 
and distinct. He said : 4 This is our child and it killed 
her : when she knew she was dying she hoped you would 
bring it up to be good, just as you brought her up, for 
she was good ’ — he spoke those words like a man speak- 
ing on oath ; and he went on : 4 1 am, unfortunately, not 
very rich, but Elizabeth will always be provided for ; 
the lawyers will communicate with you on that point.* 
Then as I stood staring at him like a fool he said : 4 May 
I put her here ? ’ and he set you very gently, just a bundle 
of lace in a white shawl you were, in Tom’s arm-chair. 
He was gentler than I could have been — I who’d already 
nursed and lost two of my own — which hadn’t hurt 
near as much as losing Molly — but he didn’t kiss you. 
He just looked at you kind of hopeless, and before I 
could decide whether I was to call him Mister Sacha 
or Mister Count, he’d walked out of the room and I 
hadn’t never even offered him a cup of tea nor to sit 
down, and I couldn’t go after him because I was looking 
at you laying there all a muddle of lace and richness, 
and when I picked you up you opened your eyes and 
sneezed at me, and it was like a bit of Molly come back.” 

44 And didn’t he ever come back ? ” asked Kissy, 


THE MILLAR GIRL 43 

feeling desperately sorry for the unkissed baby in the 
arm-chair ! 

“ No ” 

“ Where’s he now ? ” 

“ If you’ll kindly let me open my mouth I’ll tell you,” 

snapped Aunt Liz ; “ he’s dead ” 

“ Then I’ve really nobody,” asked Kissy forlornly. 

“ No,” answered Aunt Liz dryly, “ because of course 
you can’t count me, I s’pose ! ” 

For the first time since she had left early childhood 
behind her, Kissy spontaneously threw her arms round 
her Aunt and hugged her with all the earnestness en- 
gendered by a feeling of inexpressible gratitude till 
Aunt Liz checked her with a sharp : “ There, that’ll 
do, you Kissy-Girl you. Don’t you want to hear about 
your — about that man ? ” Kissy squatted back on her 
heels. “ Please, Aunt Liz,” she pleaded abjectly. 

“Well, he went back to Russia and every month a 
gentleman from Misters Dobbin and Gee’s, his law- 
people they were in London, would come down to see 
how you was and send news to him about you. The 
gentleman said that the Count had given orders to 
pay down fifty pounds a quarter for your keep, and if 
it wasn’t enough I was to say so. Of course, I told 
him it was much more than any baby’d need. Especially 
as you’d a great box of linen and things as ’ud be enough 
for half a dozen babies. You were the lovingest little 
thing I’ve ever seen except Molly, and you’d got a good 
many of her ways. Always wanting to climb on people’s 
knees to be cuddled, and you’d a way of putting up 
your face to folks and saying, 1 Kiss-kiss,’ that was 
Molly all over. And it sort of scared me because all 
the time I’d be thinking that perhaps if Molly hadn’t 
have been so loving maybe she’d not have listened to 
that man. So I made up my mind and put my foot 
down. ‘ No more slobbering over Kissy,’ said I, and 


44 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

there wasn’t ; but we still had to call you Kissy-Girl, 
you wouldn’t answer to Elizabeth. 

“You were already going to school when the Rus-ho- 
Japanese War started. It was in that your — he was 
killed. Don’t you remember how I had to spank you 
because I’d made you your new frock black and you 
didn’t like it and didn’t want to wear it ! ” — Kissy did 
remember. “ And a bit afterwards how I had to go 
up to London ? 

“ A long while before that Dobbin and Gee’s had 
stopped coming down ; they’d come to be sure that I 
was looking after you all right enough ; and I’d only 
see them for anything special. It was them as asked 
me to come and see them after 4 he ’ was killed. It 
seemed that he had left you a lot of money, and that 
the people belonging to the crazy woman he’d been 
married to were very angry about it. Misters Dobbin 
and Gee said that they were going to bring the matter 
into the courts. I thought of Molly and how shamed 
she’d be, and I told Misters Dobbin and Gee that I’d 
rather not touch a penny of the money than have to 
shame Molly for it. One of the old gentlemen said I 
was a good woman, but I told him there was no goodness 
about it, only human cleanness and decency, and that 
§ome poor folks had as much pride as others. 4 A great 
deal more, very often,’ sez he. So I came back to Croyr 
don and thought no more about it, though I will say 
that to have fifty pounds a quarter drop to nothing 
a quarter and try to keep things going entirely on Tom’s 
salary so as you’d none of you notice it, took a bit of 
doing. Of course, I’d never spent more than a little 
of the fifty, the rest I’d always put by — I’m coming to 
that in a minute — so the difference it made really was 
only seven or eight pounds or so, every three months ; 
but that’s a biggish 4 only ’ for folks like us.” 

44 1 remember,” said Kissy, 44 it meant butter or jam, 


45 


THE MILLAR GIRL 

no eggs to tea on Saturday, making Sunday’s joint last 
over Tuesday, clothes that were mended and mended — ” 

“ And who was it that ’ud set up till past midnight 
mending ’em, I wonder,” remarked Aunt Liz ; then, as 
Kissy gave her another hug she admitted, “ but I will 
say that you soon got to help a fine lot and I’m sure 
I often wonder what I’d ’ve done without you. It was 
lucky too that about that time your uncle Tom got a 
rise that made things easier, though we were never 
really in Easy Street proper till his big rise last year. 
Now I’m sure we’ve all any one c’d want ; clothes and 
food and all — ” she paused expectantly. 

“ Oh yes, Aunt Liz,” Kissy answered dutifully, but 
Aunt Liz’s keen ear, trained to recognize pretexts for 
fault-finding, noted a certain lack of enthusiasm. 

“ Yet off you go trapesing off to fetes behind my 
back,” she remarked grimly. 

“ I never will again,” hastily promised Kissy. 

“ I know you won’t,” said Aunt Liz grimly. “ And 
now about the money you’ll come into when you’re 
twenty-one. After a while Misters Dobbin and Gee wrote 
to me saying that the father of the mad wife wished 
to pay down a lump sum in thanks that we were ready 
to renounce the in-heri-tence. I was all for saying, 

‘ Keep your dirty money,’ but Misters Dobbin and Gee 
wrote that they were sure that their late client, which 
was how they called 4 him,' would have wished that 
the offer should be taken. So we took it ; and it’s that 
money, together with what I’ve saved from the fifties, 
that went to buy the insurance that’ll bring you in 
twenty pounds a year safe and regular so long as you 
live. I’m sure we’ve done the best we could for you, 
your Uncle Tom and me!” 

Kissy-Girl was the last person on earth who could 
resist any kind of an appeal to her gratitude. 

“ Oh, Aunt Liz, dearest Aunt Liz,” she cried, “ you’ve 


46 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

been just wonderful to me and I’ve so often been bad ; 
please, please , forgive me, and for the fete and all, I 
never meant to be wicked.” 

“I dare say; children never do,” remarked Aunt Liz, 
but her voice was a little less sour than it should have 
been for the expression of such a sentiment. ... In 
the distance a church-clock chimed the hour. As the 
strokes succeedingly clanged and died her features 
stiffened into their usual hard mask, the corners of 
her mouth drooped to their accustomed stern curve, 
and Aunt Liz rose as catapultuously as if a suddenly 
released spring in the bed had projected her upwards 
like a Jack-in-the-box. “ Goodness grayshus ! ” were 
the words that accompanied the two strides that carried 
her to the door, and “ Brekfus ! ” uttered in horrified 
tones was what Kissy heard as the door slammed ! 

Kissy looked vacantly round. So many thoughts 
were crowding and jumbling in her head that she felt 
dizzy and tremendously weary. By degrees one thought 
became greater and greater, overwhelmed all others 
and remained, terrifically, hallucinatingly clear in that 
little tired head. . . . 

And, as she looked at the crumpled muslin hanging 
so dejectedly over the chair back, an expression of 
horror shot through the dawning comprehension in her 
eyes. 

“ Why didn’t she tell me sooner ? ” she asked bitterly. 

Then she slid to the floor and reached for her stockings. 

Ill 

Because the cad in the dinner-jacket — not knowing 
his name Kissy merely thought of him as “ he ’’—had 
told Kissy, after having inquired where she worked, 
that he would meet her at closing time and walk part 
of the way home, Kissy stared fearfully up and down 
the High Street on Monday evening. Not seeing him, 


THE MILLAR GIRL 47 

she then scanned the shadowy doorways in which he 
might be lurking. She wanted nothing so much as to 
be allowed to forget what had happened, and his ap- 
pearance would have been the signal for her flurried 
retreat in an opposite direction. 

Aunt Liz’s revelations and the subsequent reflections 
that came to Kissy through the long empty Sunday 
hours effectually dissolved the glamour that had still 
partially enveloped her when she awoke in the morning. 
She realized that she had thrown away her birthright, 
but she was not yet quite aware that she had not even 
received the mess of pottage in exchange. 

Had “he” come to meet her, she would have run 
from him in all sincerity. But the non-necessity of 
running was a disappointment. 

She walked soberly home and helped to get the supper 
in silence. 

While Aunt Liz made busy with frying-pan and coffee- 
pot, Kissy dragged the heavy deal table at the window 
so that the after-glow of the setting sun should illuminate 
the meal as long as possible. 

From the drawer Kissy took a coarse cotton table- 
cloth checked with large purple and dark blue squares. 
Flapped into place it billowed protestingly, but Kissy 
coaxingly patted and tweaked the mound into smooth- 
ness. On the cloth she set out the thick china plates. 
The dull knives with their rough black wooden handles 
and leaden-looking forks and spoons were disposed in 
the appointed symmetrical pattern round each plate. 
In front of Uncle Tom’s seat she placed the cruet, the 
hunk of cheese, and a rusty-rimmed jar of pickles. In 
front of Aunt Liz the wooden bread-platter with its 
attendant loaf and knife, the jar of home-made jam, the 
butter-dish on which shone a soap-like slab of brilliant 
orange-tinted butter, and the crochet mat on which the 
dish of scrambled eggs would soon be placed. Then 


48 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

the cups and saucers were distributed. Gold-and-white 
survivors of a wedding present for Aunt Liz and her- 
self ; two pink-and-gold monstrosities from Margate for 
the children ; a pewter mug of beer for Uncle Tom ; 
and last of all, for Baby Nan, a battered, silver cup 
that bore a fading picture of the Eiffel Tower. The 
engravings and embossings that had made it gorgeous 
in its youth were worn and half effaced ; Kissy handled 
it thoughtfully with a newly felt interest, then she looked 
inquiringly at Aunt Liz. Aunt Liz nodded : “Yes, that 
was Molly’s christening present to little Annie. Annie 
was the one that died the year Jacky was born.” 

Aunt Liz had been as unlucky as prolific in her child- 
bearing. 

Kissy held the cool metal lovingly against her warm 
cheek ; then she pushed her usual cup and saucer along 
to Baby’s place and set the silver cup by her own 
plate. 

“ Best not,” advised Aunt Liz as she turned out the 
gas-stove with a loud “ pop.” “ Baby’ll cry ! ” But 
she made no move to enforce her advice or change it 
into a command, and when the child did cry, she com- 
forted it with an extra lump of sugar, to the astonish- 
ment of all except Kissy. 

As the meal progressed, Kissy became aware of an 
increasing contentment. She had a sensation of comfort 
and safety that she could not account for. “ I must ’uv 
been crazy, just crazy” was the recurring thought to 
which tagged intermittently the refrain, “ but no one’ll 
know ; it’s over and done with — over and done with ! ” 

She threw herself feverishly into the ritual of the 
meal, pressing food and drink on the members of her 
small safe world. It was an unconscious effort to make 
herself indispensable, and to identify herself more and 
more with them. She desired ardently but one thing : 
the assurance that always she might enjoy the tranquil 


THE MILLAR GIRL 49 

safety that she felt dwelt immutably between the four 
walls of the ugly little kitchen. 

IV 

August came, bringing a fortnight of holidays for 
Kissy. The first week was passed in a feverish bout 
of sewing. Except for a perfunctory stroll in the cool 
after-supper hour, Kissy dwelt between the teetering 
sewing-machine, and a headless, armless, almost stuffing- 
less dummy. Pinning and basting with the courageous 
energy of one who cheerfully recognizes that “ it’s got 
to be done ! ” When Friday night came and, for the 
last time, she picked up snippets of stuff, pins, and cotton- 
ends, she thought proudly of the result of all her labour. 
It lay upstairs on the bed in Aunt Liz’s room. A new 
winter school dress for her cousin, a pelisse for Baby 
Nan, a couple of white petticoats and a new black alpaca 
dress for herself. Madame Estelle had intimated that 
perhaps Kissy might make her debut in the showroom 
some time in the autumn, only, of course, she would 
have to “ put up ” her hair and dress accordingly. 
Hence the new gown — princess-shaped, yet demure. So 
exciting to contemplate as it lay in prim folds waiting 
to be put away in the cupboard. 

Followed the holidays proper. A week by the sea- 
side at Folkestone where Uncle Tom’s cousin Mary 
kept a boarding-house. 

The fact that Kissy had to sleep in the attic, sharing 
a bed with the “ skivvy,” and paid for her welcome by 
helping with the dishes and doing a bit of house clean- 
ing could not spoil her enjoyment. And when Aunt Liz, 
Uncle Tom, and the children came down by cheap ex- 
cursion almost in the dawn of Sunday morning, it was 
an utterly transformed Kissy that waited for them on 
the platform and returned to Croydon with them at 
night. 


50 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

She had a colour and she was sunburnt. She even 
seemed less angular, more developed, and Uncle Tom 
swore that she’d grown at least an inch. 

The children looked up at Kissy shyly, as if the week’s 
absence had turned her into a stranger, and Baby Nan 
had to be coaxed before she would go willingly to the 
arms that had so often cradled her. 

From time to time, throughout the day, Aunt Liz 
stared at Kissy, an expression of anxious curiosity 
creeping over her face as she did so ; “ Funny ! ” was her 
worried comment, “ that girl seems kind ’uv changed.” 
But she could not understand exactly where the change 
lay, and' after cross -questioning her cousin-in-law as 
to Kissy’s “ goings-on ” during the week and receiving 
a reassuring reply, neither could she account for it. 

“Must be my ’magination,” was her uneasy con- 
clusion and dismissal of the matter. 

V 

In a small house where there are no servants and all 
the processes of domesticity pass through the hands 
of the head of the family — in this case Aunt Liz — nothing 
can be hidden ; from the surreptitious scraping of a 
pot of jam that might have served for another meal, 
to the undue consumption of a bedroom candle. 

Early one Monday morning in September, Kissy, 
already dressed in the black alpaca frock — Madame 
Estelle had kept her promise — was helping Aunt Liz 
sort the week’s wash. 

“ — and fourteen hankies, I’ve put my best little em- 
broidered Sunday one on top so’s it won’t be lost,” 
said Kissy, as she straightened up from a stooping posi- 
tion — “ that’s all.” 

Next came the creaking whine of the coffee-mill and 
the cutting of rashers from the chunk of bacon in the 
larder, the slow, careful pouring of boiling water over 


THE MILLAR GIRL 51 

the coffee grounds in the tall earthenware pot, and the 
sharp sizzle of the cooking meat. 

Then humming a popular tune that she remembered 
from having heard the niggers sing it on the beach at 
Folkestone, Kissy walked to the sink and began to wash 
her hands. 

“ My ! I am hungry,” she sighed. 

“ Half a minute,” said Aunt Liz in a strange voice — 
“ I say, Kissy . . .” 

Kissy looked up with startled eyes, squeezed the water 
off her hands, and going over to the roller-towel behind 
the scullery door started to dry them ; the question 
appertained to a state of affairs that had already troubled 
her, and to which she could find no satisfactory ex- 
planation. 

“No,” she answered simply. 

“ But at Folkestone, hey ? ” There was an increas- 
ingly anxious tremour in Aunt Liz’s voice. 

“ No,” said Kissy again. 

Aunt Liz sat heavily down on the old wickerwork 
theatre trunk that served as dirty-linen basket ; it 
groaningly caved inwards ; it was a comical sight to 
see Aunt Liz awkwardly heave herself out of the wreck, 
but it drew no smile from Kissy ; her eyes were fixed 
on her aunt’s face — the short silence was tragic. 

“ Don’t ! Don't look at me like that, Aunt Liz,” 
cried Kissy suddenly in the tones of a child battling 
with an intolerable nightmare. “I haven’t done any- 
thing wrong ! I swear I haven’t.” 

“ What about that fete business ? ” inquired the 
elderly woman in a low voice that came huskily from 
between dry lips. 

“ But that’s over and done with.” protested Kissy. 
“ I begged pardon and said I was sorry.” 

“ Some things aren’t never over and done with,” 
said Aunt Liz, “ and being sorry doesn’t help neither ! 


52 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

What happened at that fete ? Answer me, will you ? 
You just answer me, I say ! WHAT HAP . . 

But Kissy could not bear to hear the hateful question 
reiterated. Aunt Liz had not raised her voice, but 
the painfully heavy clearness with which she enunciated 
the words was more terrifying than any outburst could 
have been. 

“ Nothing,” answered Kissy. 

Aunt Liz accorded to that reply the value it deserved. 

“ Best tell me,” she advised tersely. 

“I — I can't,” whispered Kissy, and lifting her arm 
she sobbed into her crooked elbow with all the anguish 
of the girlhood that was passing from her. 

“ God knows that’s answer enough,” said the drawn- 
faced woman. “ Oh, how could you, Kissy, how could 
you ? Molly ! Then you . . .” 

“ I couldn’t help it,” sobbed Kissy ; “ I didn’t know ! ” 

White to the lips, grim jawed with tension, Aunt 
Liz spoke : 

“You couldn’t help it and you didn’t know, eh ? 
And now I s’pose you’ll tell me that you don’t know 
either ” — the words sank ominously one by one into 
Kissy ’s intelligence — “ as how you’re goin’ to have a 
baby.” 


CHAPTER III 
London 
I 

The beginning of the New Year found Kissy in London, 
waiting. Her instinctive desire to hide had been 
seconded by Aunt Liz, who could not bear that their 
friends, their neighbours, or even Uncle Tom should 
learn the truth. It was perhaps less for Kissy that her 
aunt struggled to preserve appearances than that the 
avowed downfall of Kissy would have resuscitated the 
shame which she considered was attached to the memory 
of Mollie. She was haunted by the fear of hearing the 
phrase : “ What can you expect ; look at her mother,” 
and all her wits strained to discover a plausible pretext 
to remove Kissy from the neighbourhood that had 
witnessed her childhood and adolescence. 

“ We ought to be safe till Christmas,” Aunt Liz 
had tersely declared, “ if you can keep y’mouth shut ! 
It won’t show till then. What a mercy you young 
folks are wearing your waists under your arms this 
year.” 

Aunt Liz was very insistent on the point of keeping 
one’s mouth shut. Once she had ascertained that Kissy 
had absolutely no idea of who “ he ” was, and that 
there could be no means of tracing him, since he might 
have come over from any one of the numerous large 
houses in the vicinity of the Tennis Club, Aunt Liz 
begged and implored that Kissy should let no one guess 
the truth. 

Kissy was exasperatingly worried by the futile admoni- 
53 


54 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

tions and recriminations with which Aunt Liz over- 
whelmed her. 

The girl was changing from a quiet, timid child, with 
moods of shy expansiveness, into a taciturn young 
creature who went about her daily tasks with eyes full 
of waking dreams — dreams that were occasionally shot 
with thoughts so heavy with anger that sometimes 
Aunt Liz, suddenly struck dumb by their expression, 
would hush her supererogatory suggestions and, lamely 
pretexting some household business, hurry away to per- 
form it. The poor woman thought indignantly to 
herself that Kissy was not showing the proper spirit. 
She expected the girl to take up a sackcloth-and-ashes 
attitude ; she did not realize that Kissy’s cold aloof- 
ness was the outcome of a paralysing fear of the future 
and a raging sense of injustice that she found impossible 
to put into words even to herself. 

It was with relief on both sides that they parted, the 
morning after Boxing Day, on the platform of East 
Croydon Station. But when the guard banged and 
locked the third-class carriage door between them, 
they seemed simultaneously to realize that the action 
was symbolic. With a despairingly little cry that choked 
into a sob Kissy leaned out of the window and held out 
her arms. Aunt Liz rushed to them and the two women 
embraced with desperate finality. Tear mingling with 
tear, sob meeting sob, then as the train quivered and 
jerked forwards a porter, muttering an exasperated 
oath over “ wimmin’s fool tricks,” tore Aunt Liz from 
the carriage step ; aunt and niece waved blindly, making 
inarticulate noises in their throats. The flutter of white 
that shone faintly through the mist that enveloped 
them faded and grew fainter and fainter, then nothing 
but grey dimness remained. 


LONDON 


55 


II 

Kissy sat in her tiny lodging-house bedroom and 
sewed. 

She was supposed to be in London because she was 
thought to have obtained a berth in the millinery saloons 
of Monsieur Lewis’s London branch. 

“ If you tell a lie,” had competently declared Aunt 
Liz, “ best make the best job of it you can.” 

Therefore Uncle Tom, the little cousins, and the neigh- 
bours had had the news of Kissy’s rise in life dinned 
into their ears. Uncle Tom and the cousins were sym- 
pathetically congratulatory and the neighbours frankly 
envious. 

Sympathy or envy were alike to Kissy. 

In her heart she thought all these precautions foolish. 
So long as she could get away from the people of her 
past and hide, what did it matter how they thought of 
her ; of course, for Aunt Liz, who remained, things were 
different ; Kissy recognized the fact and was acquiescent, 
and did not demur while her aunt’s plans were slowly 
elaborated. 

But sitting in the little London lodging-house bed- 
room, those plans seemed less complete than they had 
been when Aunt Liz explained them so confidently. 
While Kissy was still in Croydon, the great object had 
been to find a plausible reason for her departure ; but 
now that she had got safely away the problem, to Kissy, 
became “ How shall I ever get back ? ” The riddle was 
unsolvable. “ I can’t go back with my baby,” she 
thought, hopelessly admitting what she considered to 
be an indisputable fact ; “ but I won’t go back with- 
out it ! ” 

From that affirmation to the final conclusion that she 
would have to look for work in London in order to re- 
main with “baby,” and that perhaps she would “never, 


56 


THE BROKEN LAUGH 

never, never be able to go home,” was but the natural 
sequence of simple logic. 

As Kissy sewed, her thoughts wandered aimlessly 
from one topic to another, but always to return, time and 
time again, to the same fixed idea : “If only I could 
find ‘ that man ’ ! ” Kissy knew it would be highly 
improbable that he would marry her — Aunt Liz had 
given her clearly to understand in what light such men 
held women such as she, Kissy, had become ; but Kissy 
did think that perhaps “ even if he won’t marry me 
‘for good,’ he might marry me to make it all right for 
baby to be born and then go away after a bit and get 
a divorce.” Kissy had never had much time or desire 
to read the daily or Sunday papers at home. She some- 
times enjoyed a hurried glance over the pictures of the 
Daily Mirror before Uncle Tom departed to the Works 
in the morning, but she rarely had time for more than 
that. If any especially exciting murder happened. 
Uncle Tom would read the details aloud to Aunt Liz 
and Kissy after the children had gone to bed ; if the 
murder happened to be of the crime passionnel descrip- 
tion, then Kissy too would be dispatched to her room. 

The word divorce meant little to her, therefore, except 
inasmuch that she believed it was something married 
people did when they quarrelled. To make sure, Kissy 
had looked up the word in a little red pocket-dictionary 
that she had borrowed from the landlady ; it said : 
“ Divorce, w., a legal dissolution of marriage.” 

Kissy had a hazy idea that legal meant a paper you 
could buy at the post office for seven and sixpence. It 
was just as well for her peace of mind at that moment 
that the landlady’s dictionary was not the “ Encyclo- 
paedia Britannica ! ” 

However, Kissy understood perfectly well that there 
was no more hope of ever seeing “ that man ” again 
than there was of it being a mistake about the advent 


LONDON 57 

of “ that man’s ” baby, so she did not pause to inquire 
too closely into the ways and means attached to the 
word which stands, for some as a beacon of hope, for 
others as the synonym of crime. 

Kissy would not have considered it as a crime. She 
had few or no religious instincts. Neither Aunt Liz 
or Uncle Tom had been great churchgoers. They held 
that it was better, if you had worked hard all the week 
to earn the wherewithal to pay your way and put a bit 
aside for the unexpected and your old age, to spend the 
week’s holiday in the health-giving open air. 

It is true that Kissy had been christened and, later, 
confirmed. She remembered, of course, nothing of the 
former event, and of the second she had but a confused 
recollection of some after-tea classes in a dimly lighted 
room where she could never find her place in the Bible 
she was so unused to handle. The ceremony itself she 
remembered better, for she had a new white nun’s 
veiling frock and white silk mittens and there was 
“ tipsy cake ” that night at supper. 

If Kissy had been asked her religion she would have 
promptly replied : “ Church of England ; ” and with 
the same conviction affirmed her belief in the God to 
whom she addressed the prayers of habit every night : 
“ Our Father-wichar-tin-Heaven ” and “ Pragod-bless- 
Aunt - Liz - and - Uncle / Tom - and - Tommy - and- 
Millie - and - Baby - and - make - me - a - good - little - 
girl -f or- Chrisache- Amen . ’ ’ 

Her prayers were merely a matter of politeness and 
the result of her upbringing. Aunt Liz had taught her 
that she must never omit that nightly ceremony of the 
bedside. Kissy said her prayers as she would say “ Beg 
pardon ! ” after treading on any one’s toes in the tram or 
after making an unseemly hiccough — an embarrassing 
occurrence that can happen to any one after drinking 
gaseous lemonade in thirsty midsummer quantities ! 


58 


THE BROKEN LAUGH 

In her imagination, God was an old gentleman with 
long hair and a curly beard who wore a night-gown and 
sat, surrounded by Christmas-card angels, on a gold 
throne with a blanket over his knees somewhere behind 
all the colours of the sky. For some time during her 
childhood, Kissy had believed that God was a sort of 
fairy godmother, and the request for brown shoes and 
stockings to be worn in the summer had been added 
to the “ Pragod bless ...” supplication. But after 
the third summer of blacked boots and black cotton 
stockings Kissy gave up all hope, and came to the un- 
easy conclusion that Aunt Liz had been one too many 
for God. And her belief in the efficacy of prayer for 
practical purposes was thereby destroyed. 

In her present trouble, therefore, although she con- 
tinued to “ Pragod ” every night, she was denied that 
which is called the “ consolation of religion,” since the 
action of praying was as purely mechanical in the little 
room in Lark Place, London, W., as it had been in 
Chesterfield Terrace, East Croydon. 

Such a little room ! Such a tiny house ! Such a Lilli- 
putian strip of front garden — from the pavement you could 
lean over the gate and ring the front door bell — in such 
an absurdly narrow street ! Lark Place was its grandilo- 
quent name. It ought to have been called Mouse Lane. 

Ill 

Kissy’s room at home had been small, but this was 
microseopic. Just wide enough to allow what the French 
call a “ cage ” bed to fit in lengthways, but there was 
not an inch to spare between it and the walls, neither 
at the head or foot, and when you wanted to air the 
mattress you had to curl it round Swiss-roll fashion 
and stand it on edge. This rather awkward way of 
disposing the bed was the only possible way that enabled 
you to get a few square feet of moving and standing 


LONDON 59 

room in the centre of the floor ; during Kissy’s occu- 
pancy, however, most of that space was taken up by 
the little wickerwork arm-chair that Aunt Liz had in- 
sisted should be added to the furniture. The kitchen 
chair which stood there before had to be taken out to 
make room for it. A home-made chest of drawers — 
soap-boxes disguised with Aspinall’s— was blocked under 
the window. A few inches of mirror framed in bamboo 
hung on the wall. On the floor was a segment of stair 
carpet so tiny that only part of the pattern could be 
seen. At night it lay on the floor near the bed, in the 
daytime in front of the little arm-chair. 

Kissy’s trunk fitted neatly under the bed. It was 
her greatest or, rather, her only treasure. It was her 
mother’s trunk, and Kissy had received possession of 
it with a rapture that even tears in Aunt Liz’s eyes 
could not entirely spoil. 

The trunk had done much to console the girl through 
the nightmare feeling of abandonment that swamped 
her during the first days alone in London. Aunt Liz , 
wisely, had refused to let her look through its contents 
in Croydon : “ Best save that for later,” she said, “ you’ll 
be needing something to take your mind off what’s 
coming when you get all alone by y’self ! ” So Aunt 
Liz pressed down the flimsy daintinesses in the trunk 
as tightly as she could, and Kissy’s own nunlike trous- 
seau and simple dresses were packed in the top tray. 

Aunt Liz also gave Kissy brown-paper patterns and 
worn models — that she herself had worn out — of the 
tiny garments that she must prepare. Garments that 
Kissy had better cut out of the white froth in the trea- 
sure-trunk, for Aunt Liz had dipped so heavily into her 
nest egg to pay for Kissy’s lodgings and forthcom- 
ing “three weeks — in the nursing home,” that no more 
could be spared to buy lawns and laces ; especially 
when a whole trunk full of old-fashioned underlinen, 


60 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

that no one could possibly wear, was laying by doing 
nothing. 

It was with loving reverent hands that Kissy smoothed 
out the deeply creased garments and, later, began care- 
fully to unpick the dainty laces and insertions and the 
long seams sewn with such delicate stitches. 

Sometimes, when the afternoon drew in and she could 
see to work no longer, Kissy would unwrap the little 
round ermine muff and cape from the blue tissue-paper 
that enfolded it and, in the gathering dusk, she would 
sit in the creaking arm-chair with the cape over her 
shoulders, her hands in the little muff and under her 
feet the strip of carpet. She would close her eyes and 
dream waking dreams. The favourite of all being one 
in which she was in Russia with her unknown, often 
imagined father. He had fair hair that curled under an 
astrakhan cap. With him Kissy would go skimming 
over leagues and leagues of snow in a swanlike sledge, 
and at the end of their journey they would drive up to 
a great square red-brick house that stood alone in a 
big garden, and her mother — with a twist of gold ribbon 
in her hair — would open the front door and say : “ Hurry 
up, my darlings, there’s buttered toast for tea.” 

But she could not always bring her dreams to such 
triumphant conclusions. Sometimes they were shattered 
by the premature arrival of the afternoon milkman 
with his noisy rattling of cans and his impatient tug 
at the jingling wire-drawn bell. Then Kissy had to 
get up and run downstairs with a jug, and on her return 
light the candle and the spirit-lamp and set about cook- 
ing the boiled egg and bread and milk that Aunt Liz 
had prescribed should be her daily tea-supper. 

After that there would be nothing to do but to go to 
bed, and, because Aunt Liz was paying for them — light, 
coals, and attendance extra — Kissy blew out the candle 
and undressed in the dark. She needed no attendance, 


LONDON 61 

and as the weather was not very cold she did without 
a fire. The lodger in the second-floor bedroom under- 
neath had one, and it seemed to Kissy that its warmth 
crept up and warmed the walls of her own tiny chamber. 
But, “ ouch ! ” how the contact of the cold sheets, as she 
slipped between them, made Kissy go “goose-fleshy,” 
and how hard she had to imagine a blazing fire in the 
black empty grate before the healthy reaction set in and 
she slept, curled up puppy fashion, and rocked by the 
rumble of the traffic in the near-by Bayswater Road. 

IV 

Every morning Kissy went for a walk in Kensington 
Gardens. 

But first she had to set her room and her belongings 
in order. Air and make the bed, dust and sweep, wash 
up and clean the two or three pieces of crockery, and 
the knife, fork, and spoon that were her modest table 
equipments, not forgetting the tin saucepan that fitted 
so neatly over the circular stand of the spirit-lamp. 

That Kissy should take at least one daily walk, and 
preferably in the morning, had been the strictest of 
Aunt Liz’s many injunctions. It was with that point 
in mind that she had chosen Lark Place from among 
the countless addresses she had visited during a journey 
to London to arrange for Kissy’s stjour in a maternity 
home. 

“You may feel a bit queer mornings, sick-headachy 
or something like,” she had warned Kissy, “ but don’t 
you go coddling yourself and dawdling in bed. Get 
up and see to things. Have a good wash, then dress 
warm, and while the bed’s airing get your breakfast.” 

But Kissy was lucky enough not to feel “ sick-head- 
achy ” or even “ something like,” and it was no effort 
for her to get up every morning when the church clock 
in St. Petersburg Place struck seven. 


62 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

Always by nine o’clock she was ready to put on her 
little squirrel-fur cap and the ample waterproof coat 
that Aunt Liz bought for her with the money that would 
have paid for a long-desired new Sunday costume if the 
thing which had happened had not happened. 

And every time that Kissy looked at the peg from 
which the coat hung behind the door she seemed to see, 
instead of a dull greyish-brown garment, a green velvet 
frock resplendant with an Irish crochet lace collar and 
velvet buttons fastened in real button holes sewn in 
the serried richness of an unwavering line from chin 
to skirt-hem. 

Then came the walk up Lark Place past all the absurd 
little houses covered with the winter skeletons of Vir- 
ginian creepers, and the still more absurd little front 
gardens, some of which actually had the impertinence 
to boast of a path made of miniature cobble-stones 
and a half-yard square flower-bed hemmed in with 
pointed terra-cotta tiles. One arrogant house-owner 
had gone the length of building a rockery out of broken 
bricks and some kind of material that looked like pumice 
stone or petrified bath sponge. A sooty laurel bush grew 
out of the summit. It was very ridiculous, and yet you 
could not help imagining that the silly creature had derived 
great pleasure from his preposterous achievement. 

Kissy would enter Kensington Gardens by that sort 
of side-door gate and path which is the first you come 
to when you walk up Bayswater Road coming from 
Notting Hill Gate. Then she would walk straight down 
past the field that does not properly belong to the Gardens 
and is uppishly railed off with tall spiked railings. On 
Wednesdays and Saturdays a girls’ school plays hockey 
there. Many of the girls were older than Kissy, but 
as she wistfully watched them rushing about she felt 
older than all their grandmothers rolled into one old 
Methuselah lady. 


LONDON 63 

Kissy had never read or heard of “ Peter Pan ” or 
the “ Little White Bird,” and so she did not know that 
Kensington Gardens had its own particular history and 
geography ; but although she did not think of all the 
delightful places she passed by their proper historical 
or geographical names, she enjoyed herself very much 
for all that. The Round Pond, which she just familiarly 
called the pond, tout court , was her special attraction, 
and one morning a great piece of good luck came her way 
as she was walking there. It was rather late, getting on 
for boiled mutton and rice time, and the children were 
being hurried home, all except one little boy who refused 
to budge and was behaving 44 very contrary indeed.” 

His new toy yacht had sprung a leak and was stranded, 
water-logged, just beyond reach of his equally new, and 
beautifully jointed bamboo boat-hook. It had been 
given to him by a young and foolish bachelor uncle, 
who did not know that it is unwise to give little boys 
toy boats in winter time. The. sails hung limply. If 
only the breeze had not dropped so suddenly it would 
have been all right, for the Saucy Sally carried enough 
canvas to make light of such a little thing as an inch 
and a half of water in her hold. But there it was, the 
breeze had dropped and nurse was the unkindest, un- 
reasonablest, hatefullest thing in the whole round world. 
It was all very well for her to say, 4 4 Dinner time, 
Master Teddy, come home, now, like a good boy and 
we’ll send Albert to fetch your boat.” It wasn’t nurse’s 
boat ! She didn’t care if, as soon as Teddy’s back was 
turned, some ragged cad with tom knickerbockers and 
the lining sticking out of his cap behind came along 
and having no shoes or stockings to spoil, waded into 
the pond and made off with the Saucy Sally. So Master 
Teddy’s face, from pink, turned to deep red, and plant- 
ing his heels firmly in the gravel stood stiff-legged and 
hurled defiance at law and order. 


64 


THE BROKEN LAUGH 

Yes, and if nurse jerked his arm again that way he’d 
lie down and roll in the mud, and perhaps he would 
hit her with his boat-hook ; yes, by golly he would ! 

Then came Kissy’s chance. She went up to the 
worried nurse and politely offered to wait in charge 
of the Saucy Sally till Albert should arrive. “ No, she 
had nothing particular to do and it didn’t matter if 
she was late for dinner.” This last statement made 
Master Teddy stare in astonishment ; but he was quite 
willing to profit by the kindness of such an extraordinary 
girl. The grateful nurse decided that Kissy was a 
nursery-governess out of a job, or perhaps even only a 
“ slavey,” and jumped at the offer with a “ very obliging 
of you, I’m sure — say thank you nicely, Master Teddy — 
I’ll send Albert along in two-two’s,” and she hurried 
away before Master Teddy could either get over his 
surprise, say thank you, or object. 

No sooner had Master Teddy and his nurse disappeared 
between the trees that mask the Bayswater end of the 
Broad Walk hump than a most sail-stirring nor’-easterly 
breeze sprang up. The Saucy Sally came romping into 
harbour. With beating heart Kissy lifted the dainty 
toy out of the water. Very carefully she tilted it over ; 
the water inside slowly trickled out drop by drop. 

Surely Albert would not arrive quite directly ? Kissy 
set the rudder and shortened the sail, then, with a guilty 
glance round, she launched the Saucy Sally once more. 

As she watched the pretty thing skim over the water 
she forgot all her troubles. How quickly it ran before 
the breeze, she had to hurry and even run to reach the 
point where it was heading. Twice Kissy was able 
to sail the little yacht before Albert arrived. How she 
hated him and his dirty big hand as his great fingers 
sprawled over the wooden deck and gripped the beauti- 
ful white-and-blue sides. 

“Been looking after ‘our kid’s’ boat, ’ave yer?” he 


LONDON 65 

Said, “ s’pose you thought you’d get something for yer 
trouble. Well, here y’ar, the Missus said for to give 
yer this.” 

Kissy refused the proffered half-crown and walked 
away, her nose in the air. 

It was Kissy all over, rather foolish possibly, but 
still a very comprehensible foolishness. Albert winked 
knowingly to himself as he pocketed the coin and thought 
gloatingly of an orgy of Woodbine cigarettes, ha’penny 
comics, and moving pictures. 

“ I hope baby’ll be a boy,” thought Kissy as she 
walked home, and she pondered lovingly on toy yachts 
and sailor suits. “ He’ll be about four years old when I 
get my insurance money,” she decided, “ but, of course, 
I’ll have to pay Aunt Liz what I owe her for ‘ all this ’ 
out of the first year’s. Still I don’t s’pose he’ll be big 
enough for boats till he’s five or six.” 

Twenty pounds a year seemed illimitable riches to 
Kissy, especially as, of course, she was going to work 
very hard besides. 

This was the only adventure Kissy ever had in the 
Gardens and the only time her walk stopped short at 
the Round Pond. Usually she went on to the Flower 
Walk and along it as far as the Gold Man. Kissy did 
not know it was the Albert Memorial, and as the only 
grown men she had ever seen wearing breeches and thin 
stockings that wrinkled at the ankles and buckled shoes 
were the gorgeous flunkies in the Croydon Christmas 
pantomimes of Cinderella, she thought it very strange 
that such a grand monument had been set up to a foot- 
man. From the shining example of Victorian art Kissy 
would go as far as the Serpentine. To that part of it 
where the water curves into a little bay and the gravel 
path runs down, beach-like, to meet it. Where even 
the best of children can’t resist getting their feet wet 
accidentally-on-purpose. And because this is a well- 


66 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

known fact nurses rarely take their charges that way. 
Especially since Mister Barrie — they always call him 
Mister, it is so much more comfortable than Sir Jeammes 
— wrote “ Peter Pan ” ; for, because of Peter, the 
children have the excuse to lean forwards and try and 
peep to see if, just for once, he isn’t coming from the 
island in his nest-boat by daylight ; and all nurses know 
that if a child leans over the edge of the water it must, 
sooner or later, go splash in with one foot to avoid 
toppling over altogether. 

Kissy always halted there too, and generally kicked 
a few pieces of driftwood back into the stream in order 
to watch them float away, and, like the children, she 
always pretended that she hadn’t done it on purpose. 
Then she would reach the Fountains where there was 
sometimes a very genteel -looking old maid who had 
little sawdust dolls for sale dressed in crocheted pink- 
wool dresses. Kissy never saw her sell any. She 
wondered if they were very expensive, and wished 
ardently that she could afford to buy one. 

She rarely loitered by the Fountains. She found the 
slime-coated urns and statues very depressing and 
melancholy, and she hated the square hole of dark 
water near what she called the Water-Works-House in 
the corner. She had the feeling that children had been 
drowned there. Altogether the Fountains made her 
want to cry, and on rainy days they were so gloomily 
grey that she would hurry by without even looking 
over the railings at them. She always went home down 
the path that runs parallel with the Bayswater Road 
where the many coloured ’buses made things gay even 
on the muddiest days, and she made up her mind that 
some day she would take the necessary pennies from 
her dinner money and visit those far-off lands called 
Marble Arch, Oxford Circus, and the Bank. 

At the Queen’s Road Gate she walked out of the 


LONDON 67 

Gardens because her daily marketing was done in the 
Queen’s Road ; but before she went to Whiteley’s to 
buy her chop or her eggs or her bit of bacon she paused 
at the squat terra-cotta “ Tube ” station. She was 
fascinated by the ever mounting and descending lifts 
with the wonderful trellis-work doors that seemed like 
a conjuring trick, by the spic and spanness of the ticket 
collector and liftman, the dairy -like freshness of the 
tiled walls, the alluring pictures on the magazine covers 
of the bookstall. Even the moth-ball smell that rushed 
up the lift-shaft in warm gusts was an attraction. 

Shopping at Whiteley’s became a joy, too, after Kissy 
wandered by accident one day into the department 
where the “ real-live ” animals and birds are sold. 
Kissy could have spent hours watching the furry Persian 
kittens playing or snuggling together in sleep behind 
the plate-glass panels ; and the fat stub-tailed puppies 
that wallowed so clumsily, stumbling on unsteady paws. 
Kissy loved the kittens, but she liked the puppies “ a 
little best.” They were so deliciously helpless. 

After that she always had to hurry to get home in 
time to cook her dinner and be out of the landlady’s 
way by one o’clock. Aunt Liz had arranged that Kissy 
was to have the use of a rusty two-ringed gas stove in 
the closet-like scullery behind the kitchen. It was so 
very small that Kissy found it wise to get her cooking 
over by one o’clock, which was the hour when the land- 
lady was always in a hurry to wash up. 

The landlady of No. 8 Park Place was a middle-aged 
good-hearted, gossipy cockney — an ex-servant of the 
general-help and very-plain-cooking variety. Her hus- 
band was a postman, and, Christmas boxes having been 
particularly generous this year, Mrs. Wiggins was in 
an excessively amiable disposition towards things and 
persons in general, including Kissy. 

But'Kissy “ kept herself to herself ” in strict obedience 


68 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

to Aunt Liz’s orders ; she was polite, but monosyllabic ; 
a task she did not find very difficult, for in spite of her 
obviously sincere desire to be kind to Kissy, the land- 
lady had a funny way of calling her “ Missis Dalton,” 
accompanied by a grin and a wink that Kissy found 
excessively disquieting. 

But when one morning Mrs. Wiggins told her that the 
drawing-room floor lodger had left the day before, and 
in cleaning out his room she and the “ char ” had come 
across a whole ’eap of magazines and illustrated papers, 
Kissy could not quite quell the look of longing that 
leapt to her eyes. The sagacious landlady saw it : 

“ Look ’ere, my dear — beg pard’n, I’m sure — Missis 
Dalton as I should say — you come dahn ter the kitchin 
after you’ve ’ad yer tea bye’n bye and ’ave a look at 
’em. You’re kindly welcome, Vm sure. I don’t ’old 
with mopin’ over things as c’awnt be ’elped, and you 
fair give me the creeps w’en I think of you sittin* up 
there in the dark of an evenin’. Be soshable, my dear. 
Alwys bein’ alone ain’t ’ealthy, and you’ve got to think 
’uv the one what’s cornin’ as well as y’self, y’ know 1 ” 

Kissy thanked her with politeness yet saying neither 
yes or no ; but as she passed through the kitchen and 
saw the tempting pile of periodicals, she knew that she 
could not possibly resist their attraction. 

V 

Shyly therefore, at six o’clock, Kissy descended 
kitchen wards. To her immeasurable relief she found 
Mrs. Wiggins smirking in front of the mirror while she 
pinned on her hat. “ Mike yerself at ’ome with the 
pipers, my dear,” she said. “ Mrs. Smiff, ’er that lives 
next door but one, ’as got a couple uv passes for the 
fyst show at the Shep’erd’s Bush Empire, and I thought 
as ’ow you wouldn’t mind just openin’ the front door 
if anything special sh’ld come. ’Tain’t likely tho’ ; 


LONDON 69 

all the lodgers ’aving keys. If ’Arry gets ’ome before 
me, just tell ’im I’ll soon be back, will yer ? And see 
’ere, mike yerself free with the coals, my dear, I’ll tike 
it as a favour not to let the fire go out. I can always 
do with a bit of toasted cheese when I’ve been out of 
a night ; to my mind it sort o’ gives a proper finish to 
a treat.” 

Kissy willingly agreed and promised. She also helped 
Mrs. Wiggins with her jacket when she got “ all mixed 
up ” with the tom lining of the sleeve, and accompanied 
her to the foot of the kitchen stairs where she watched 
her ascend and waited till the front door banged. Then, 
running back to the kitchen, she exultantly prodded 
and spanked the fire with the poker till it roared up the 
chimney in angry protestation. Then dragging a chair 
to the table she settled down to her treat with a rap- 
turous sigh. 

There were many magazines. The “ Strand,” the 
“ Windsor,” and “ Scribner’s ” — which Kissy thought 
looked very learned. Best of all she preferred the 
“ Royal.” Revelling in the gay covers and the thrilling 
or amusing illustrations. There were big, serious 
“ Spheres ” full of photographs of political people in 
Gladstonian collars and ugly boots, and of English 
Royalty. Kissy thought that feminine Royalty wore 
hideous hats and very apparent stomachs, and concluded 
that no doubt the latter were due to the fact of their 
being able to eat as often and as much as they liked. 

The “ Tatler ” with its full-page photographs of pretty 
actresses and society debutants enchanted Kissy. Be- 
lieving only in nature and knowing nothing of Lallie 
Charles, she had not imagined there could be so many 
beautiful women in the "world. She unselfishly enjoyed 
also the snapshots — how infinitely less beautiful they 
were in those snapshots too — of the “ swells ” who led 
such enviable care-free, exciting lives that were evidently 


70 


THE BROKEN LAUGH 

one endless string of treats. Swells on the Riviera in 
white garments with lacy sun-shades — Kissy wondered 
why they published what she imagined to be summer 
pictures in the middle of January. Savelis on roller- 
skates and on horse-back. Swells opening bazaars and 
having garden parties, or merely strolling down the 
street towards the camera with enormous feet prominent 
in the foreground. Swells playing golf and hockey and 
shooting little birds and standing — or sitting — about in 
bunches, called House Parties, wearing shabby old 
clothes that still managed to look smart. Swells play- 
ing polo in their shirt-sleeves and waistcoats. Swells 
walking into churches very primly or dancing at the 
Albert Hall in embarrassing costumes. Swells sailing 
on excessively narrow, tall-masted, dangerous-looking 
sailing-boats ; just exactly like, only twenty-hundred- 
thousand -times larger, the toy yacht that Kissy salvage ! 
on the Round Pond. Swells getting engaged and 
married and . . . well, there were pictures of the lady 
swells with the little daughter or the little son they had 
just had. The “ Tatler ” never seemed to speak of a 
plain “ baby ” ; it was always Mrs. So-and-so’s charming 
or delightful child or children. Sometimes the editor 
would playfully use the term “ youngster,” and then 
the describing adjective was particularly laudatory, 
but never, in any case, Kissy gathered, could a swell 
child be just a mere common or garden baby. 

As she carefully turned the highly glazed pages, Kissy 
began to feel rather sorry for herself. So many, many 
people were having a good time in the world. It seemed 
an awful pity that she could never hope to have a good 
time too. Not a “ swell’s ” good time, of course, but just 
the ordinary pleasures she might have been able to 
look forward to if . . . 

The tears brimmed in Kissy’s eyes and, while she 
f umbled in the front of her blouse for her handkerchief, 


LONDON 71 

one of them ran down her cheek and fell with a splash 
on the centre of the page she had just turned. With a 
panic-stricken “ Ow ! ” Kissy blinked back the drops 
that were trying to play follow-my-leader and hastily 
dabbed at the big wet spot. When it was dry she put her 
head down on the table and squinted side-ways at the 
place where it had been. It showed ! A dull greyish 
mark that had taken all the beautiful polish off the 
paper. And bang in the middle of a photograph too ! 
A photograph of . . . Kissy read carefully, “British 
Ambassador in Paris and his Staff.” What a dear nice 
old gentleman and what splendid staff-people. They 
had such smooth heads, such tidy little moustaches, 
and Kissy liked the white tuckers they wore in their 
waistcoats. The young ones who stood up in the back 
row were especially fascinating with their sea-lion heads 
and slim figures that scooped in under the single button 
of their cut-away coats. And that very tall one, three 
frqm the end . . . but Kissy’s mental monologue 
trailed off into blankness, she bent forwards and stared 
stupidly, unbelievingly, crushing her young breasts 
cruelly against the hard edge of the table as she pored 
over the photograph. Her chin jerked forwards, and 
she swallowed violently. “ It’s him alright,” she mut- 
tered, and then, all her resentment and misery and 
sense of injustice flaming into expression as she looked 
at the handsome face whose eyes seemed to stare into 
hers with sneering unconcern, she beat at it with her 
clenched fist, sobbing, as each vindictive blow fell, 
“ Damn you ! damn you ! ! damn you ! ! ! ” 


CHAPTER IV 
Paris 
I 

Kissy stood at the soap-box chest of drawers in her 
tiny room writing. 

“ Dear Aunt Liz,” the final “ z ” had a particularly 
sprawly tail because the soap-box had lurched un- 
expectedly, Kissy having forgotten to jam it steady 
with her right foot and hold it firmly by the pressure 
of her left knee. She stared at the ill-formed letter 
dubiously. For any one but Aunt Liz it might have 
passed, but Aunt Liz was always so very particular 
and so prone to compare Kissy’ s small, round and rather 
childish handwriting with Molly’s smart and regularly 
angular caligraphy. “ If you can’t make your writing 
look like a lady’s you can at least make it look neat,” 
was Aunt Liz’s favourite remark. So Kissy sighed, 
and took a clean sheet and began all over again. The 
address, the date, then : 

“ Dear Aunt Liz, — 

“ I hope you will not be very angry with me be- 
cause I am going to go and see baby’s father. I saw 
his likeness printed on a newspaper, and because of what 
it said, reading from left to right underneath, I know 
his name, which you wall excuse my not writing at 
present, and I think I shall easily be able to find him. 
He is a swell, as we thought, and so I don’t suppose he 
will marry me, especially w r hen I remember all you said, 
but it can’t hurt to just see him, if it’s only for baby’s 


PARIS 73 

sake. If it was only for me I’d rather never set eyes 
on him again.” (Kissy underlined the pronoun heavily 
and then regretted it, and wondered if Aunt Liz wouldn’t 
think it untidy.) “ He is not in England, and so I have 
pledged the box and the ermine muff and cape, as well 
as some of the other clothes, to get the money for the 
journey, as I did not want to trouble you any more 
after all you have done. I will not spend a farthing 
more than I need, and if he won’t see me I will come 
straight back here where the room, being paid for in 
advance, is always mine till Monday, and I will save 
every penny I can to get back mother’s things. 

“ Dear Aunt Liz, please forgive me again and do not 
worry. I can take care of myself now ” (Kissy ’s “ now ” 
was infinitely pathetic), “ and I am very well, thank 
you. 

“ Could you tell Uncle Tom that you’ve had a post 
card from me and that I send him my love ? And to 
Tommy and Milly and Nan ? 

“ I will close now because I must start. I will write 
again directly I have seen him or as soon as I get back 
here. 

“ Dear Aunt Liz, thank you for all you have done. 
I know I have been very wicked, but I didn’t mean 
to be. 

“ With love and many kisses. 

“ I am your loving niece ” (Kissy hesitated and then, 
resolutely, as if realizing that pet names as well as her girl- 
hood were things of the past, she wrote) “Elizabeth.” 

II 

Kissy ’s first journey by “ Tube ” was not the satis- 
fying joy that the fulfilment of an ambition ought 
to be. 

The downward rush of the lift frightened her and made 
her feel sick. And while she waited on the thronged 


74 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

platform she was terrified at the idea of leaving the clean, 
gleaming-tiled station with its gaily comforting pictorial 
advertisements, in order to be plunged into the gaping 
blackness of the tunnel. Then, when once inside the 
brightly lighted carriage, her little Japanese wicker- 
work basket on her knees, her fears set at rest by the 
peaceful faces of her co -travellers, Kissy found it im- 
possible to think of anything else but the coming journey. 
It seemed incredible that she was actually starting for 
Paris. Paris, capital of France, a country, to reach 
which you had to cross the sea in the real, big, smoke- 
blowing steamers Kissy had seen at Folkestone. A city 
where the people spoke a foreign language. Not that 
that would trouble her much because she intended to 
take a cab straight to the Embassy on arriving — an 
excessively and unusually obliging young woman in 
the Westbourne Grove Post Office had looked up that 
address for Kissy — there Kissy would find English speak- 
ing people and Mr. J. Crighton. 

Mr. J. Crighton, Mr. J. Crighton . . . That was him . 
That was his name. Baby’s father : Mr. J. Crighton. 

It was a fine-sounding surname. But Kissy wondered 
what “ J ” stood for. All the “ J ” names she thought 
of were common. John, Jack, James, Jim — Jimmy 
perhaps ! Kissy liked 4 4 Jimmy,” she rather liked 
44 Jack,” too. Then she was angry with herself. What 
did it matter what 44 J ” stood for. If baby was a girl 
she would be called 44 Molly ” and if a boy 44 Tommy.” 
But could you be christened a pet-name, Kissy wondered, 
or would it have to be Mary or Thomas ? This seemed 
rather an important point and Kissy was unable to 
elucidate it, so she put it aside to refer to the higher 
authority of Aunt Liz. 


PARIS 


75 


III 

At Victoria Station Kissy could not at first find the 
right ticket office for the Continent, and her uneasy 
wanderings attracted the attention of an offensive look- 
ing little male in a fawn-coloured, velvet-Gollared. high- 
waist ed overcoat, cigar-shaped patent boots with pearl- 
grey uppers, and an enormous-peaked, very full, travel- 
ling cap. His sallow face bore the scabby scars of many 
pimples, his eyes were unpleasant, and from time to 
time he sucked at his teeth in a disgusting manner, 
making revolting noises as he did so. 

His own ticket, in the bottle-green elastic-banded 
covers so generously supplied by the ubiquitous Cook, 
peeped from the breast-pocket of his impossible coat, 
but, overhearing Kissy as she finally decided to ask 
an elderly porter where she could buy a ticket for Paris, 
he tucked it out of sight and followed her to the guichet. 

“ Single or return,” snapped the business-like ticket 
clerk when Kissy shyly requested a “ third class for 
Paris.” 

The offensive little man stood at Kissy’s right elbow, 
he was pretending to consult the time-table that hung 
near the guichet , but his ears and eyes were intent on 
Kissy. 

“ I ... I dunno,” she answered. 

“ Well, nor do I,” declared the ticket clerk truculently. 

Kissy blushed and humbly inquired the price of each. 
He told her, and while Kissy tried hard to think co- 
herently and take a decision he w r histled through his 
teeth, beating time with a pencil on the wooden ledge 
of the office. It w^as a tune Kissy knew, and she found 
that the only thing she could think about was the words 
that fitted to it — “ I want you — single or return ? — for 
my wife, I love you — return or single ? — better than my 
life — return ? — if you won’t have me — single ? — please 


76 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

say so now — I am the . . The tapping on the window, 

ledge became a regular tattoo.. Kissy gave it up. 

“ Single,” was what she said at a venture. 

As she walked away the little man strolled after her. 
He could not quite place Kissy, still it was obvious that 
this was her first journey to Paris, that she was very 
young, very inexperienced, and, possibly, alone in the 
world. Otherwise, surely there would have been some 
one to put her in the train. 

It was strange, too, that she did not even know if 
she wanted a return or not. 

He watched Kissy safely into a third-class compartment 
and then retired to his smoker to try and puzzle it out. 

IV 

Kissy sat in a corner of her carriage without moving. 
The Japanese basket always on her knees, both hands 
clasping the leather handle of the straps that bound it. 
She watched the leaping landscape with eyes that saw 
no details, only blurred masses of tired green or brown 
slashed with dark tree skeletons. Only once, at a level 
crossing, did she lean eagerly forwards to watch three 
little children, their white pinafores fluttering from under 
their winter cloaks and jackets, wave and shout — Kissy 
could see the round O of their mouths — as the train 
passed them. 

When the train stopped at East Croydon Kissy shrank 
farther back into her corner. From her seat she could 
see a little way up the long glass-panelled slant that 
leads to the street level. Among the crowd of voyagers 
ascending and descending Kissy saw Smith’s newsboy 
sliding down, his hands in his pockets, right foot well 
forwards. Then on the platform was the very same 
porter who had pulled Aunt Liz away from the moving 
train the morning of Kissy’ s departure for London, 
barely three weeks ago. 


PARIS 77 

Kissy watched with eager eyes. The thought rushed 
to her, tantalizing but unrealizable, what was there to 
prevent her jumping out of the train and running home 
to Aunt Liz ? The neighbours ! Uncle Tom ! Bother 
the neighbours, bother— yet the sudden opening of the 
carriage-door almost stopped Kissy’s heart . . . sup- 
pose it was some one who knew her ! 

It was only an old market-woman going to South 
Croydon. 

She was voluble and inquisitive. Kissy was obliged 
to tell her that she was going to Paris. The old woman 
displayed great excitement. She had a daughter who 
was in Paris too ! But Emmer-leen was a long sight 
older ’n Kissy. She was a nunder-nursemaid in a very 
grand place where they had gold crowns on their note- 
paper. If the good soul had been able to “ say it off 
by heart,” or had possessed pencil and paper, she would 
have given Emmer-leen’s address to Kissy. At her 
destination she climbed out of the carriage leaving 
Kissy with the excellent piece of parting advice to 
“ eat hearty ” at Folkestone, for “ it don’t do to be 
sick on an empty stummick, my dear ! ” 

Unfortunately when they finally reached Folkestone 
and Kissy followed the passengers to the steamer, she 
forgot the old lady’s advice in the excitement of finding 
herself for the first time in her life on board a vessel 
of any kind. 

Few people were crossing. Kissy had the ugly, third- 
class end of the lower deck to herself. She looked 
up enviously at what she mentally termed the “ terrace ” 
above. 

“ Can’t I get up there,” she asked a blue-jerseyed sailor. 

“ Yes, but you’ll have to pay,” was the reply. It 
usually is. 

When Kissy heard the relatively small sum she would 
have to disemburse she decided that “ it was worth it,” 


78 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

and that she would infinitely rather be up on the terrace 
than devote the money to food. 

The man showed her the way to the upper deck and 
returned to his duties. He offered neither to get Kissy 
a tarpaulin or a chair. She was not of the tip-giving 
class. For several minutes Kissy stood watching the 
supernatural intelligence of the luggage crane, marvelling 
how a mere machine could gauge distance and size so 
precisely. The oily mechanic in the little whistling, 
snorting engine-box that guided the gigantic arm seemed 
to Kissy unnecessary, she did not recognize in him 
the controlling human brain. 

Then she became greatly interested in the few ladies 
who were heroically taking measures to remain on deck. 
She watched them shyly from a distance. Wondering 
at their quantities of hand-luggage, at the delicate 
chiffon veils they tied over their caps, leaving long ends 
that fluttered gaily in the wind, at the heavy, expensive- 
looking rugs in which subdued but elegant maids wrapped 
the aristocratic limbs of their mistresses. Kissy under- 
stood the dbsinvolturc with which the sailor had treated 
her when she saw silver flash between a shipboy, who 
had brought the deck-chairs and tarpaulin covers, and 
a splendid male who belonged to one of the well-cared- 
for ladies in the chair. Money was distributed freely. 
But why did the transaction always appear furtive and 
somewhat shameful ? 

Moving forwards, she discovered a seat on something 
which looked like a huge empty reel of cotton. It was 
made of iron and painted a dark yellowish colour. When 
she sat she found that her chin was conveniently level 
with the railing-thing that hemmed the terrace. She 
turned her back to the deck and looked out across the 
water. It was a dull, grey day. Windy and damply 
cold. The sea moved heavily, and out in the open 
Channel “ white horses ” crested the uneasy waves. 


PARIS 79 

Bells rang, bare feet pattered, and hobnails clattered. 
There came the scrooping grind of the withdrawing 
gangways and the smacking splash of thick hawsers 
hitting the smooth water of the harbour. A rattle of 
machinery, a drum-like arrangement revolved sedately 
and a dripping rope wound upon it. Then a faint 
tremour shivered through the deck under Kissy’s feet. 
She became conscious of a slight pulsatiorf that speedily 
became an ever-heavier throbbing. Already the great 
mass of the landing-stage was dwindling, the throbbing 
became a beating pulsation. Soon Kissy noticed that 
the railing she so firmly clung to no long remained 
parallel with the horizon, it slanted up into the sky. 
Suddenly the deck dropped under her and she was 
thrown against the railing that had somehow tilted 
again, so that wherever one looked only a moving wall 
of water was seen. Kissy looked back at the harbour. 
The jetty was an infinitely remote and tiny thing. It 
was grotesque to think that the steamer had ever found 
refuge there. Kissy’s hands tightened convulsively on 
the ice-cold bars of the rails before her, her precious 
basket lay forgotten at her feet. Already she was shiver- 
ing. It did not occur to her to envy the ladies in their 
gorgeous rugs, but she began to regret the comparative, 
shelter of the lower deck. She thought of the old market- 
woman. “ I wish I had bought a sandwich,” she sighed. 

V 

It was really rough. One by one the deck-chair 
ladies were assisted below. One by one their magni- 
ficent males departed saloon- wards. Only a few, too 
miserably sick to move, remained on the field, thankful 
that the early gloom of a grey winter day was already 
drawing a kindly veil over the paroxysms that bowed 
them, quivering and gasping, over the hideous tin re- 
ceptacles that so much resembled collection boxes. 


80 


THE BROKEN LAUGH 

Occasionally a sailor would walk haltingly along the 
deck and bend solicitously over one of the recumbent 
figures, or a gorgeous male in his wonderful, many- 
pocketed storm-collared overcoat would stagger for a 
turn or so, his pipe or cigar throwing trails of sparks. 
A schoolgirl returning to school who had calmly slept 
till then awoke in trouble, and rushed to the side of 
the boat where she curved over the rail in tense agony, 
and then hung there in limp abandonment till a sailor 
authoritively conducted her below. 

Drenched with spray, deafened with the roar of the 
sea, desperately hungry, so cold that her jaws ached 
from chattering, Kissy still clung to the position, but 
moment by moment it grew more and more intolerable. 
She was horribly numb, and her feet and hands were 
four points of almost unbearable pain. 

She regretted that she was not sick. “ P’rhaps one 
of ’em (the sailors) would come and fetch me away then,” 
she thought. But she was not sick, and when her en- 
durance could endure no longer she tardily decided that, 
having paid for it, she had as much right as the deck- 
chair ladies to warmth and shelter. Slowly she stood 
upright, stiffly she uncurved the frozen grip of her 
fingers on the rail. At that instant the steamer balanced, 
steady, on the crest of the wave, the next it was wallow- 
ing down in the hollow. Kissy lurched forwards, slipped, 
and fell with an ugly crash, sliding across the wet deck 
till her body came in thudding contact with a pile of 
folded chairs. She lay there motionless for a moment, 
she was not sure if she was really hurt, but she felt very 
sure that she would never be able to gather the energy 
to climb to her feet alone. Then, it was pure magic, 
the little man in the fawn overcoat appeared suddenly 
out of space and, very carefully, helped Kissy to rise. 


PARIS 


81 


VI 

In a quiet corner of the dining-saloon they sat and 
talked. Kissy, warm, grateful, and no longer hungry, 
sipped at the liqueur brandy the kind stranger had 
prescribed and brought to her even before the great 
plate of ham and pickles, the bread and butter and tea 
had been set on the table by the steward. He had also 
tried to relieve Kissy of her voluminous wet coat, but 
Kissy had resolutely clung to it, consenting only to 
unfasten the top buttons and open it a little at the 
neck. A slender, perfectly moulded neck that supported 
a delicious and equally perfect chin. A childish chin 
cleft with a tiny dimple. The stranger in the fawn 
overcoat looked at it with the cold eyes of appraisement. 
He looked also at the thick straight hair under the 
squirrel fur cap, the grey eyes under the long black 
lashes, and he noted the fine pallor of the skin that 
flushed so prettily as the old cognac did its work. 

The trampling of feet overhead told of the gathering 
of hopeful passengers on deck, galvanized into life by 
the nearness of land. The stranger felt there was need 
to hurry. He did not particularly wish to be seen 
with Kissy on French soil — it is always wiser to be on 
the safe side — neither did he particularly wish to. travel 
third class in a country where third class is varnished, 
perhaps, but not padded. 

“ And so,'’ he summarized skilfully, “ the little lady, 
she go to Paris for a visit ? Her fren’s, zey will be to 
the station to meet ’er ? ” 

“ No,” answered Kissy guilelessly, “ he doesn’t know 
I’m com— I mean they don’t expect me really. It’s, 
it’s a sort of surprise I’m giving them. In fact I’m not 

quite sure if ” she hesitated, and then struck by 

what she imagined to be a plausible and happy inspira- 
tion, finished, “ they’ll have room to take me in ! So 


82 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

I wonder, you being so kind and knowing Paris too, 
if you could very kindly tell me of a cheap quiet place 
I could sleep to-night if they can’t have me right away 
at my friends I ” 

The stranger smiled — he was certain he understood — 
it was really too easy. 

He looked carefully round, an excess of prudence no 
doubt, but it was well to be cautious. The saloon was 
already empty ; even the steward, whom he had paid 
earlier and handsomely tipped — to be entered to busi- 
ness “ exes ” — was engaged elsewhere, probably with 
hand- baggage in the quest of more backsheesh. Then, 
on a blank card, he scribbled an address. 

“ But lis’n,” he said in his foreign English as*, he gave 
the card in Kissy’s keeping : “ ze peoples of zis ’otel 
zey are ver’ ’onest, but all ze same, Paris it is Paris, 
and if you drive to ze door in a cab zez will charge ze 
bill ’igher ! See zen, I put one ’undred and twenty-five 
on ze card and you show it to the driver and zere he 
tak’ you. But ze real numbaire ees one ’undred and 
forty-tree, and when you leave ze cab you mus’ walk 
joust one little down ze street to find it. Remark well, 
forty-tree ! Like zat ; they not think you so rich zan 
if you drive ! See you ? ” 

And Kissy actually thought that she did. 

It was regretfully that she heard him take leave of 
her outside the saloon door and saw him disappear. It 
occurred to her that no male had ever bowed to her so 
grandly before. She felt self-conscious and a little 
flurried, but she wished that Aunt Liz could have seen 
him. Then she, too, climbed on deck and joined the 
lamentable crowd huddled round the points where gang- 
ways would extend welcoming arms from the Boulogne 
quay. 

The half -hysterical excitement of the French blue- 
bloused porters, of officious hotel touts, of the stout 


PARIS 85 

women who sold “ dollees-one-shilling,” of the plate- 
juggling buffet waiters, and of the prying customs 
officials, at first dismayed Kissy. Then she became 
resentful. Were they all crazy, these people who jab- 
bered foreignly into her face, and then, on seeing her 
stare of incomprehension, rushed away without trying 
to make her understand. 

When she had painfully hoisted herself up the three 
steep steps of the carriage that towered so high over 
the low platform dear to the heart of the officials who 
design and build French railway-stations, Kissy became 
conscious that every movement she made was an effort. 
She decided that either she had caught a chill or else 
the fall on the boat had hurt her more than she had 
realized when it occurred. 

“ My ! I do feel queer,” she said to herself uneasily, 
and she leaned back in her corner with closed eyes, the 
attitude was restful, but she gave no impression of 
restfulness, she seemed rather to be listening intently. 

The dusk was almost night when the train snailed 
away from the harbour, crawling over the cobble-stones 
where small boys clattered in sabots or pattered with 
bare feet, shrieking for “ un p'tit sou ” between their 
somersaults. And when, after one more halt in the 
arc-lamp -lit brightness of the Central Station, it steamed 
snortingly off on its journey to Paris, night had fallen 
profoundly. 

As the train gathered speed and settled rhythmically 
down to the steady tremour of a long run, Kissy’s 
“ queer ” feeling left her ; but she still lay back with 
closed eyes. The thought that she was “ nearly there ” 
became more and more overwhelming. She began to 
wonder how she would “ tell him.” It was not the first 
time such a thought had occurred to her. Before taking 
the immense decision of going to see “ Mr. J. Crighton, 
Kissy had tried to write to him. For a whole afternoon 


84 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

she stood at the soap-box chest of drawers and sought 
inspiration from the chimney-pots opposite her window. 
The letter proved to be an impossible one to write. 

“ If he sees me he’ll remember and then I’ll tell him 
the rest,” she had decided, though even then the sneak- 
ing thought had risen, “How’ll I ever say it ? ” But it 
seemed easier to put that thought aside with the blank 
notepaper and to trust to the future, than to go on 
puzzling over the impossible letter. 

Now with each throb of the engine Kissy was drawing 
nearer and nearer to the awful moment when she would 
have to tell that stranger — for there was part of the 
horror of it, he was a stranger , and Kissy shuddered at 
the thought of the coming ordeal. 

It was a pallid and unnerved girl who stood on the 
edge of the pavement outside the Gare du Nord, and 
waited patiently till a taxi-driver should deign to notice 
her. In one hand she clutched the precious envelope 
on which she had copied, in large letters, the address 
of the British Legation, from the other the Japanese 
basket dangled and beat against her leg. 

This was Kissy’s first glimpse of Paris, but she was 
not conscious of the wonder of the moment. Only one 
impression forced itself upon her, and that was the utter 
and unnecessary hideousness of the two-story steam 
trams that passed to and fro, shutting out, momentarily, 
the painfully bright glare of lights in a cafd on the oppo- 
site side of the street. 

Recurring attacks of the “ queer feeling ” had made 
her feel numb and exhausted. She was longing des- 
perately to finish with the dreaded interview and then 
to get to bed somewhere — she put down her basket 
and assured herself carefully that the kind stranger’s 
card was still safely in her possession — she longed so 
terribly to lie down and rest, to no longer be shaken 
and jolted and tossed about as she had been all that day 


PARIS 85 

by boat and train. To lie down between smooth sheets 
in a quiet room where she would be able to listen with- 
out being disturbed. It seemed to Kissy that if only 
she could listen attentively enough she would be able 
to understand the “ queer ” feeling that troubled her. 

At last a taxi slowed down and the driver peered 
inquiringly. Kissy nodded and the car came to a 
snuffling standstill. The envelope was displayed, and 
the chauffeur, after having glanced at it by the light 
of the little lantern which illuminated the dial of the 
taximeter nodded, and, leaning out from his seat, swung 
open the door. 

The scrap-iron motor, spluttering viciously, carried 
Kissy towards her goal over the uneven cobble-stones 
of the main roads of Paris. When, occasionally, the 
wheels slid more quietly over the smoother asphalt 
or wood-paving of tranquil side streets, Kissy felt that 
she was being shown glimpses of Paradise. It was 
during one of those moments that she came to this 
definition of her “ queer feeling.” “ It’s like when 
you’re going to have a bad toothache and you can’t 
tell yet which tooth it’s going to be in ! ” 

Then, as the taxi suddenly skidded round the corner 
of the silent square Laborde and plunged into the un- 
easy traffic crush of the Place St .-Augustin, shaving 
past an overwhelming steam tram as it did so, Kissy’s 
mouth opened in a silent scream, the sharp intake of 
breath hissed in her throat, and then, swaying from the 
hips, she bowed forwards till her chin almost touched 
her knees as she sighed profoundly. She hardly knew 
what had happened. Had her heart merely leapt with 
terror at the miraculously avoided accident, or had there 
really been an almost unbearable wrench of pain, a 
shudder of agony that, mercifully, had passed in an 
unanalysible flash. She listened intently for a few 
seconds and then shook her head ! “ Silly things,” 


86 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

she said, and stared indignantly at the puffing trams 
as they steamed in all directions from and into the 
“ Place ” that the taxi was swiftly traversing. 

“ Wonder if we’re nearly there,” thought Kissy, care- 
lessly. Then her thoughts wandered. She thought 
aimlessly of many things. It was extraordinary how 
her fear of Mr. J. Crighton had left her. As she drove 
along she found it impossible to concentrate her thoughts 
on him at all. Instead of wondering how she would 
break the extraordinary news of her identity and her 
extremity to this man who would certainly have for- 
gotten her, she was trying to recall enough board- 
school French to ask the “ hotel -landlady ” for a bed. 

“ Bong-joor, M’am. Sil-voo-play I want ung lee.” 
Yes, that was perfectly correct. Nobody could fail to 
understand that. Besides, the landlady would know 
what she would be coming to the hotel for. Then, 
while Kissy was struggling to remember the French 
for “milk,” the car stopped, and as Kissy did not im- 
mediately descend the chauffeur tapped on the glass. 
Kissy slowly reached the pavement. The handle of 
the door had been odiously cold to the touch and she 
shivered, then almost directly she was so hot that she 
felt little beads of moisture gathering on her upper lip . . . 

“ Look here, you wait ! Attendy ! See ? ” said Kissy 
to the chauffeur, and showed him the little basket on 
the seat of the cab. The man nodded and slouched 
over his wheel, leaning his ill-shaven chin on his folded 
arms. Kissy looked up at the imposing entrance of 
the Embassy and was angry in a curiously dull way 
because at first no bell was apparent. Then, when she 
had found and rung it she continued to feel angry be- 
cause quite twenty seconds elapsed before it opened. 
A sedately whiskered concierge , as gorgeous as an admiral 
in his gold-braided uniform, bowed with urbanity. 

“ Please, I want to see Mr. J. Crighton,” said Kissy 


PARIS 87 

in English. The admiral bowed again and smiled 
pityingly. 

“ Mistaire Crichton ees not ’ere at present, Madame,” 
he answered in fluently mispronounced English. “ Ze 
chancelleree ’owers are from ten till twelve and two 
till seex, zen ’e is sere ! At present only Mistaire Chose 
and Mistaire Machin are ’ere — ” but a very English and 
rather young voice suddenly interrupted : 

“ Somebody askin’ for me, Simon ? ” 

The concierge pivoted with astonishing agility. “Ah ! 
Monsieur Crichton , je vous croyais dtja parti ! ” 

“ No, still here. Who wants me ? ” 

“ Zis lady, Mistaire Crichton.” 

The young secretary came to the door and looked at 
Kissy : “ You are asking for me ? ” he said, with a smile. 
“ Please come in and let me know what I can do ! ” 

But Kissy only stared. This was not the stranger of 
the Tennis Fete. The likeness she thought she had 
recognized in the photograph was no longer traceable 
in the living man. In reality this man was quite different 
except for the general “ air ” that all well-groomed men 
of a certain class have and the arrangement of the sleek 
hair and the cut of the tooth-brush moustache. 

He stood aside waiting for Kissy to enter. She shook 
her head. 

“You are Mr. J. Crighton ? ” she asked, thinking 
that perhaps she had not heard correctly. 

“ Certainly,” he assured her. 

“ Thank you,” said Kissy, “ then would you — er — 
would you ...” she gasped and wondered wildly what 
she could possibly say. Then somehow the sentence 
finished itself ! “ Would you please tell me the French 

for ‘ cup of milk.’ ” 

“ Tasse de lait ,” he answered mechanically, and as 
the last word left his lips Kissy turned and flew. The 
taxi chug-chugged after her. The two men in the door- 


88 


THE BROKEN LAUGH 

way saw her stop and show the chauffeur a card, then 
she climbed into the cab and was driven away. 

“ Ca doit etre une blague , Monsieur Crichton ,” said 
the concierge ; but the young man was staring into the 
darkness. Kissy’s eyes had held his attention. 

“ Well, I’m damned ! ” was what he finally said, 
and it was not a particularly brilliant solution. 

VII 

Kissy cowered in a corner of the jolting taxi, staring 
blankly with wide-fixed eyes, a frown of pain creasing 
her forehead. She was not thinking of the tragically 
ridiculous anti-climax of her desperate journey. As 
she climbed back into the car another spasm of agony 
had wrenched her. No longer mercifully brief this time. 
Belated instinct told her at last what to fear. Yet still 
she struggled to believe that “ it would pass off.” She 
tried to convince herself that rest, a good night’s rest, 
was what she needed. She was so very, very tired. 
In the morning she would be all right and able to go 
back home. Yet even as her weary brain argued she 
braced her body to resist the physical proof that con- 
tradicted the argument. Her grip on the blue cloth 
arm-slings of the cab was so fierce that one of her gloves 
split across the knuckles, the other gaped, buttonless, 
at the wrist. 

Another crescendo of pain started, swiftly gathering 
such intensity that Kissy heard the moan she could not 
check rising to a sobbing gutteral cry. Then again 
the torture ebbed, her scream quieted to a sigh, and at 
the same moment the car slid into a narrow street and 
came to a palsied halt. 

VIII 

The rue Macabre is bom in the old-world heart of 
Paris, in the utterly irresponsible, more than a little 


PARIS 89 

mad, Latin Quarter, near the musty-smelling arcades 
of the Odeon. This accounts for its erratic career. It 
climbs after donning many disguises to the topmost 
summit of Montmartre where, having exhausted all 
possibilities, it ends blankly in a cul-de-sac. It is a 
street of decadence and grandeur. It starts off with 
careless shabbiness through fusty bookshops, romantic 
cremeries that scent it deliciously for brief seconds with 
hot bread and chocolate. It frowses between second- 
hand clothes and colour shops till it reaches the Seine, 
and there, bound on either hand by heavy stone para- 
pets, passes indifferently over tne grey-green waters 
of the river. It hurries through the grimy, populous 
newspaper quarter near the Bourse. It cuts unswerv- 
ingly through quiet, tree-planted, grass-plotted, fountain- 
playing squares where lovers loiter, children build dust 
castles, and fussy old gentlemen feed impertinent spar- 
rows. It swerves crookedly, its houses making danger- 
ous angles through cut-throat quarters, where the 
sergent-de-ville tramps warily with whistle hanging free 
on the chain and dog unmuzzled sniffing alertly on the 
leash. It climbs between two sous Bazars and St 
Honorial Galeries , sumptuous hotels prives that have 
survived historical cataclysms and chambres garnies at 
a hundred and twenty francs the month, twenty for 
the room, the hundred for the unlimited licence of the 
latchkey. It widens out in front of the Church of 
Sainte-Marie-des-Anges and becomes pompous for many 
hundred yards. It is somnolent under the red-brick 
walls of a laicized convent. Frivolous as it passes the 
Bal Musette and the cafes chantants near the Place 
Blanche. Shamefacedly it squeezes past two brothels. 
Sedately it loiters through a new quarter where dazzlingly 
white constructions of stone and plaster shelter replete 
bourgeois families in Louis XV flats. In the rue Macabre 
there are Cafe Biart, Bouillon Duvals, and fried-potato 


90 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

stalls. There are also restaurants so grand that it 
almost spoils the appetite to eat in them, and others 
less grand but of infinitely greater renown, where princes 
have dined in the abandoned wickedness of cabinets 
particuliers . You can buy anything in the rue Macabre 
from a toothpick to an automobile. You can take your 
choice from all classes to pick a wife — or a mistress. 
In the rue Macabre you will find the midwife and the 
undertaker, the millionaire and the camelot , puling 
infants and senile nonagenarians. A man could pass 
his whole life in that street and be wiser than the globe- 
circling traveller. The rue Macabre is a microcosm, 
and it ends, symbolically, before a blank wall. 

IX 

It was at the number one hundred and twenty-five 
of the rue Macabre that the taxi cab stopped. 

At that moment Kissy was enjoying one of those 
numb and incredibly peaceful lulls that immediately 
succeed unbearable bouts of pain. 

She picked up her basket and peered through the 
front window at the dial of the taximetre. The stranger 
had changed Kissy’s English money for her on the boat 
and given her some idea of the value of the new coins 
she received. At first she found it difficult to believe 
that the stranger was not cheating himself when, in 
exchange for a sovereign, he gave her not only a gold 
piece nearly as big, but a little pile of silver and copper 
besides. When he explained to her the worth of English 
gold, Kissy felt inexplicably proud, as if, by being 
English, she was, in an infinitely atomic quantity, 
responsible for England’s wealth. She felt proudly 
patriotic and thrilled with the same delighted thrill 
as when, after having worn a dark blue bow of ribbon 
on her jacket for three weeks or so, the Oxford crew 
rewarded her belief by winning the Boat Race. 


PARIS 91 

The taximeter marked a single “ 4 ” at one of its 
little windows and then, next to that, a puzzling “ 25.” 
Kissy knew that the first figure stood for the francs 
she owed, but she could not remember whether the 
twenty -five represented the equivalent of farthings or 
pennies ; or how many pennies made up a franc. 

There was a big five-franc piece in her purse, wonder- 
fully solid and reassuring to contemplate. “ I’ll give 
him that,” she decided, “ and see if he smiles ” ; so she 
climbed down, slowly and precautiously, dreading any 
sudden movement that might awaken pain. 

She tendered the five-franc piece between finger and 
thumb, the other fingers were closed over another, 
very small silver piece in her palm, to be hastily offered 
“ in case he didn’t smile ! ” But he did smile, also he 
touched his cap, and Kissy, greatly relieved, slipped the 
unnecessary coin back into her pocket. Walking with 
carefully precise little steps, Kissy began her search for 
number one hundred and forty-three. Up the street, 
of course, but to find its direction Kissy had to look 
at the numbers of the houses. 

Tall dark houses. A narrow squeeze of a street. 
Farther up it seemed to widen in contradiction with 
the elementary laws of foreshortening Kissy had learned 
at the Board School. 

Cabs and carts and motors were passing, and pedes- 
trians were coming and going on the pavements in a 
hurried jostling throng. No one loitered. They all 
seemed in a hurry. All except one or two bright-com- 
plexioned women, who sauntered leisurely, their long 
skirts held high over flamboyant petticoats, strained 
tightly round their bodies and grasped firmly on the 
left hip by a gaudily ringed hand. Number one hundred 
and forty-three was a tall dark house like the others ; 
only taller and, except for one detail, darker. The 
number of the house stood out clearly against a blue 


92 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

glass box in which some bright gas jets hissed noisily. 
Otherwise darkness everywhere. No line of light showed 
between the shutters that Kissy could only divine as 
she stared up at the gloomy facade faintly illuminated 
by the flickering light of a street lamp that suffered 
from a broken incandescent mantle. Gropingly she 
felt for the bell, found and rang it. Then, wearily, she 
leaned against the stone wall into which the high wide 
double door was set. A heavy prison-like door, studded 
with great nails. Gigantic iron knockers hammered to 
represent wreaths of laurel leaves stared blankly like 
blind eyes. The vertical handles by which the door 
could be swung close from the outside jutted like a nose 
beneath the sightless eyes, the dark slit of the letter-box 
on the right made the illusion complete The whole 
door looked like a saturnine face in which the grim 
mouth was set crookedly with a beckoning obscene leer. 

Suddenly, and her heart began to throb with sick 
apprehension, Kissy felt the forerunning rumours of 
another crisis, at the same moment the door opened. 
It seemed as if the wooden face was opening a gigantic 
mouth to swallow Kissy, for the huge double doors 
did not swing back, only a section of the panelling moved. 
A door within a door — it reminded Kissy of the Croydon 
hat-shop entrance when the shutters were up — slid back 
and revealed a dark stone-paved hall. At the back 
of the hall was another door ; a light shone reassuringly 
through its ground-glass panels. 

Blindly Kissy stumbled across the stone pavement 
of the hall, a horrible weight dragging at each knee. 
Behind the glass door she found a short flight of carpeted 
steps, at the top of which hung a pall-like velvet curtain. 
With difficulty she managed to raise one foot high 
enough to set it on the bottommost stair ; then dropping 
her travelling basket she stood, with outstretched arms, 
swaying like a tight-rope dancer. 


PARIS 98 

There was a rustle of silk and the clink of curtain 
rings, the curtain was swept aside and Kissy’s upturned 
face glistened, lividly white, in the bright light that 
shone down on her from a brilliantly illuminated vesti- 
bule. A warm rush of air, that seemed like an invisible 
wall to repel the cold night draught that had entered 
with Kissy, was scented heavily with something sweet 
and sleepy. Kissy had an impression of nude marble 
figures, of tall palms in wonderful pots, of hangings 
and colourings of unimaginable richness, and of a stout, 
comfortable-looking person dressed in a black brocade 
gown that was looped with gold chains, stood at the 
head of the stairs and smiled down at her. 

Huskily, in a whisper that no one could possibly hear, 
Kissy spoke : 

“ Bonjoor , M’dam,” the rehearsed sentence came 
mechanically, “ ung lee , sill-voo-play , and ung tasse 
der ...” she stopped, and her hands fell to her sides 
despairingly. 

“There, I’ve forgotten it,” she said in English, and 
then, still trying to remember, she bowed weakly at 
the knees and fell sideways. 


CHAPTER V 
The rue Macabre 
I 

The stout, comfortable-looking woman stood at the 
foot of the bed and looked down at Kissy. The black 
brocade gown of the evening had given place to a warmly 
wadded mauve kimono, which was tied at the waist by 
a crimson curtain-cord that had evidently been snatched 
from its hook in the careless haste of an emergency. 
She stood with her hands clasped in front of her, her 
forearms resting on her corsetless paunch, and supporting 
in turn the ruins of a generous bosom. She still wore 
the beautifully waved “ transformation ” of silky grey 
hair, that usually reposed in its Clarkson box during the 
kimono period of her day’s work. The spectacles, which 
were looped securely behind each ear, were absurdly at 
variance with the elegance of her coiffure, and with the 
carefully powdered nose on which they rested. 

The room in which the bed stood was the typical 
servant’s bedroom of the French septieme . The pro- 
miscuous “ seventh floor ” of Paris which forms a world 
in itself, with customs and easy morals of its own. The 
last narrow flight of carpetless stairs that mounts to it 
is the abrupt transition which renders that floor utterly 
remote from the rest of the house. 

The sept 'time is either tolerated by ignorance or ignored 
by tolerance. 

As a room it was cheery enough, with its neatly 
papered walls on which pink-edged daisies, careless of 
the laws of nature, climbed as if they had been crimson 

94 


THE RUE MACABRE 95 

ramblers. Bright cretonne curtains were strung before 
the pointed window that was set into the sloping ceiling 
like a sentry-box. A galvanized iron washstand, as 
naked as a skeleton, supported a small blue-and- white 
china wash-basin and jug. Below it, unmasked by any 
kindly curtain, a brown tin slop-pail stood brazenly 
open and full of soapy water, and on the floor near it 
lay a damp mass of crumpled linen towels. This -was 
the only visible sign of disorder in the room. The bed 
had that particular fresh neatness of something that has 
only just been accomplished. No crease marred the 
white smoothness of the sheet folded precisely over the 
red-stitched twill coverlet, and the bedclothes were 
drawn tightly, with no sagging untidiness, under the 
rounded edge of the mattress. 

Kissy, face upwards, her head on the exact centre of 
the big square pillow, her chin denting the smoothly 
folded sheet, Kiss}' slept the quiet sleep of exhaustion, 
undisturbed by the glare of an electric bulb overhead 
which shone blindingly on the closed lids. 

Madame — she of the mauve kimono — smiled ruefully 
as she thought of Kissy’s kind stranger and the telephone 
call he had sent her from the Gare du Nord, announcing 
the possible advent of une primeur ! But Madame was 
a large-hearted optimist and saw what was, to a woman 
of her profession and morals, the humorous side of the 
situation. She rejoiced gratefully that an awkward 
crisis had been safely passed, and told herself that, 
unless unforeseen complications arose during the next 
few days, the girl in the bed would be well and on foot 
again in a couple of weeks. 

The only thing that troubled Madame was that Kissy 
looked such a child. When one thought of what had 
occurred one could not adjust its signification with the 
air of childish innocence that always remained one of 
Kissy’s chief charms. “ One would give her the Good 


96 


THE BROKEN LAUGH 

God without confession,” thought Madame perplexedly, 
“ and yet, see ! ’* 

From Kissy’s modest trousseau, the little black alpaca 
frock worn under the travelling coat, and the calico 
night-gown that was unpacked from the Japanese basket, 
Madame would have unhesitatingly classed Kissv as a 
domestic servant. But her hands, in spite of the evident 
fact that they were useful members, were still too neatly 
kept and soft to ever have scrubbed floors or done 
much washing up. A lady’s maid ? Hardly probable, 
far too young. 

In the awful hours preceding her present peace, Kissy 
had either moaned and wept, or else kept silent with 
the dumb anguish of a suffering animal. Only towards 
dawn, a little before the end, when she had thought 
that she was dying, did Kissy sobbingly cry on Aunt 
Liz. It was a hopeless wail of despair, and then almost 
directly after, a miraculous healing quiet had fallen and 
she ceased to suffer. With the cessation of pain came 
the overwhelming desire to sleep. She was hardly con- 
scious of the ministrations of the sleek-headed doctor 
with the curly, new-looking yellow beard, and soft, cool, 
yet horrible hands, and of the bustling help given by 
the fat lady in the mauve garment, who was called 
Madame by the numerous and annoying women who, 
earlier in the night, had at intervals come peeping into 
the room. Yet the last thing Kissy knew before she 
closed her eyes and slid into darkness of oblivion was 
that Madame had been very kind to her. It was this 
Madame who had taken the pins out of her hair and 
softly brushed her heavy mane before pig-tailing it, while 
an old thin woman in a white muslin mob-cap, decorated 
with a goffered frill in front, and tied on the nape of 
the neck with a little white bow, knelt on the floor and 
unlaced Kissy’s boots. It seemed to Kissy that the old 
woman had spoken to her in a language that sounded 


THE RUE MACABRE 97 

something like English, but she was not quite sure, and 
Madame had spoken peremptorily, and the old woman 
had become silent, for which Kissy was very grateful. 
It was Madame who had opened the Japanese basket to 
which Kissy had silently pointed, and found the night- 
gown she so desired. It was Madame who had pushed 
a hot-water bottle to the foot of the bed, and later, when 
the weight of the bedclothes had become unbearable 
stripped them over the foot of the bed, and wrapped a 
light shawl round Kissy’s shoulders, and remembering 
all this with the confused vagueness of drowsy sub- 
consciousness, Kissy whispered, “ Pragod-bleSs-Aunt- 
Liz - and - Uncle - Tom - and - Madame - an’ -make - me - goo* - 
lit’le-girl-an’-Tom’y-n ” — mumble, mumble, mumble — 
“ *f ’Cri’s’ache,-men.” 

Since then she had slept without a movement, without 
a sigh, and Madame once or twice had bent forwards 
anxiously to assure herself that all was well. 

II 

Madame glanced at a loudly tick-tacking alarm-clock 
that stood on a white-enamel fretwork bracket nailed 
to the wall near the bed. 

Five-thirty already, no hint of dawn as yet. She 
straightened her back and made a little comical grimace 
of pain, then she tiptoed to the door, opened it, and 
listened. The house was silent except for the sudden 
loud buzzing of a grandfather-clock somewhere down- 
stairs, which richly chimed the single stroke of the half- 
hour. There were also scrambling night noises that 
came eerily from behind walls and ceilings and under 
floors, ajid by and by a door opened, possibly on the 
same landing as the grandfather-clock, a loud masculine 
voice said, “ Till soon,” and a husky but sweet feminine 
voice replied, “ That’s it, mon chfri” Then some one, 
walking in boots that creaked, went downstairs and 


98 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

clumsily dragged a stick out of an umbrella-stand ; 
clumsily, because there resounded the hollow thud of 
a “ bowler ” falling on the floor. A second person 
joined the bungler in the hall, and a rapid conversation 
ensued ; then the curtain-rings jangled faintly, and a 
few seconds later came the soft, heavy thud of the porte - 
cochtore closing. 

Madame looked at Kissy. She had not moved ; it 
seemed perfectly safe to leave her for an instant, so, 
tiptoeing out of the room, she crept down the dark 
passage and went to the head of the stairs, where she 
stood peering down at the illuminated floors below. 
Her loosely moulded, amiable old face assumed an alert, 
businesslike expression, she blinked frowningly as she 
listened, and her lips were pursed in a sagacious mouS. 

A woman in a black dress, that might have been cut 
from the same length of material as the one Madame 
had exchanged for the mauve kimono, came up the 
stairs. She was a much younger woman than Madame ; 
tall and slim, with broad masculine shoulders, and a 
plain, very yellow face. She wore her own hair, un- 
waved and unadorned, parted on one side, and flattened 
into a sort of smooth cushion at the back. From the 
crook of her left elbow dangled a large black morocco 
leather bag. She paused on the landing immediately 
below Madame. 

“ Can one close ? ” she asked. 

“ Is all the world gone ? ” 

“ All the world, yes ; except that there is one in the 
pink room who will take chocolate at half-past nine, 
and an 4 angliche ’ who desires eggs on the plate, with 
bacon, and a bath with a shower, well cold, at eight 
hours. Outside it snows. I think that one might well 
close.” 

“ It is well, it is well,” agreed Madame, “ one may. 
But occupy yourself with it and send to me Kate at 


THE RUE MACABRE 99 

once ; why is it that she is so long ? ” But even as 
she asked, Kate’s white cap appeared. Madame wel- 
comed her with tranquil abuse : 

“ Sacred lazy one that thou art ; didst thou have to 
fabricate it thyself that it takes thee three hours to 
find a candle ? Haste thyself then and make no noise, 
the poor little one still sleeps.” 

Kate nodded soothingly and passed on. Madame 
turned to follow her, but the brocaded subaltern stopped 
her with the question : 

“ It goes well up there ? ” She jerked her chin 
upwards, and raised her eyebrows. 

“ But, yes, all goes well, now! But, believe you, 
what foolishness on the part of Anatole 1 The camel ! 
He will pay it me for this ! I will teach him, me, to 
make more attention to what he does,” said Madame, 
as she finished the turning movement, adding, as she 
departed, “ Good night, Laurence, shut well the doors. 
Sleep well. Till later.” Then she returned to the room 
where Kissy still slept calmly. Kate had already 
screened and lighted the candle and. switched off the 
electric light. She was taking off her blue check apron 
preparatory to loosening her stays. Her frilly white 
cap was hung on a peg behind the door. A thin mattress 
had been dragged into the room, and it lay against the 
wall parallel with Kissy’s bed, together with a blanket 
and pillow. 

“Make good attention to her,” ordered Madame; 
“ the doctor will come again in the current of the morn- 
ing. I will raise myself in time to see him.” Kate 
nodded. A nod was her customary reply. Her man- 
nerisms were not very ingratiating. 

In the dim light Kissy appeared more pathetically 
childish than ever. Madame looked at her, for an 
instant hesitating. 

If Kate had not been there it is possible that she 


100 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

would have stooped and kissed her. As it was she only 
tucked the bedclothes more closely, and murmured : 

“ PauvHi chou ! ” 

Kate watched the exit of the mauve kimono and the 
closing of the door with careful attention, then she, too, 
stood by the bed and looked at Kissv. She shrugged 
her shoulders in Gallic mode that accorded ill with her 
English angularity. 

“ ‘ Poor little cabbage,’ indeed,” she grumbled, 
“ ‘ silly little fool,’ more likely — I wonder what lies that 
Anatole told her ! ” Then she settled down on her 
mattress, and drawing the blanket up over her shoulders 
fell quickly asleep and filled the little room with the 
sound of peaceful and powerful snoring. 

Ill 

The first thing Kissy did after the departure of the 
doctor next morning was to ask for paper and pencil 
in order to write to Aunt Liz. When they were given 
to her, however, she found the effort of writing far 
beyond her strength ; so Kate, who had received orders 
from Madame, offered to write at Kissy’s dictation. 

The paper was plain and unstamped. “ Please put 
the address first,” said Kissy. 

Kate obeyed, writing in the extreme top right-hand 
corner of the page. 

“ Thank you,” said Kissy politely. 

“ Ready,” sighed Kate with the peculiar resigned air 
that people don when they are being dictated to. 

“ Dear Aunt Liz,” commenced Kissy. 

“ — Vant Liz,” echoed Kate. 

“ I arrived in Paris quite safely, because that is where 
I thought baby’s father was. I did not want you to 
worry, so I did not tell you that when I saw his photo- 
graph in a paper, and it said he was a secretary at the 
British Legation here. I knew you would be anxious 


THE RUE MACABRE 101 

about my travelling so far alone. I am sorry to say 
that the gentleman at the Legation is not my gentleman 
at all, though he seemed just like in the pictures. 

“ I know you will be sorry to hear that I have been 
very ill. I think it is because I had a fall on the boat, 
and got very cold. I am not going to have a baby any 
more. It was born yesterday, but it was much too 
soon, and so it did not live. It could not have, even 
in one of those stoves like for hatching chickens. I did 
not see it, but the doctor who took care of me told the 
[Kissy hesitated and then changed the sentence ; she 
felt diffident of calling Kate a servant to her face] — 
told Mrs. Kate [and Kate, who had neither been married 
nor asked in marriage, smiled grimly as she corrected 
it to Miss] — who is so kindly writing this for me, that 
it was a little boy. It wouldn’t have been so bad if it 
had lived, as being a girl like me. But I suppose it is 
better it has died. Perhaps I ought to have died, too, 
but I am afraid I am glad I didn’t. 

“ A very kind foreign gentleman on the boat gave me 
the address of this hotel, where the people have been 
very good to me. I shall soon be quite well, and will 
come home at once and set to work to pay back all I 
owe and get the box out. I think I shall have enough 
money to pay my expenses here because Miss Kate tells 
me that the room is only a franc a day — which is ten- 
pence — and the doctor will not charge much, as he is 
quite young, only a medical student really, and a friend 
of Madame’s, who is the landlady of this hotel. Please 
write to me soon, dear Aunt Liz. I do hope you are 
not too angry with me, and that you are quite well, and 
Uncle Tom and the children also. 

“ With fondest love, dear Aunt Liz, I am, 

“ Your loving niece, 

“ Elizabeth.” 


102 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

The letter was duly folded into a big square envelope 
of flimsy yellow paper, and Kissy herself licked the 
gummy flap before dictating the address to the inky- 
fingered Kate. 

Five minutes later Kate was translating the missive 
to attentive-eyed Madame and her subaltern. Twice 
she read it over, and then, in obedience to a nod and 
a curt “ it is well,” she put it down on the table and 
fumbled under her apron for the tape by which hung 
a pair of scissors. 

Very carefully a narrow strip was cut from the top 
edges of the letter. Kate had been careful not to write 
too near the top of the second and third pages of the 
note-paper. After the address was cut off you could 
only read “ Paris, January 24.” Then the crease was 
ironed flat, and the letter folded again and slipped into 
an oblong envelope, which it fitted precisely. For the 
second time Kate wrote the address. With the stamp- 
ing and ultimate posting, the task was neatly and 
thoroughly completed. 

“ One understands now ! ” Madame remarked to 
Madame Laurence. “ After all, Anatole only did what 
he thought for the best. It was a chance to run. One 
cannot wish him ill of it.” 

Madame Laurence agreed ; but requested a little 
acidly that Madame should tell her exactly what was 
to be done with Kissy, and why, in the name of Heaven, 
she should not be sent back to her Aunt Liz ! 

Madame shrugged her shoulders with good-humoured 
contempt for her subaltern’s reasoning powers. “ My 
faith, but you are stupid, my poor friend,” she said ; 
44 it is very well that the little one should say how kind 
was the gentleman, how kind were the good people of 
the good cheap ‘ hotel.’ ” Laurence joined Madame in 
a gentle snigger of appreciation over a good joke — “ but 
when the so dear Aunt Lise hears the tale exact, it is 


THE RUE MACABRE 103 

possible that she make complaints and inquiries about 
the so kind gentleman and the so good and cheap hotel. 
No, no, it is not possible that one should let the little 
one go home. The letter will tranquillize the old aunt, 
who will think that the little one has forgotten to make 
put the address. She will say to herself, if I do not 
reply, she will understand and write again, besides, of 
all ways, she will return very soon ! ” 

“ But when she will see that the girl does not write 
and does not return ? ” 

“ That she will not return is true,” answered Madame 
with tranquillity, “ but where do you take it, I pray 
you, that she will not write ? Certainly she will write ! 
And by the time she writes ” — Madame spoke with 
firm assurance — “she will be able to say that she has 
created for herself a situation ! ” 

IV 

Kissy ’s convalescence was fairly rapid. It would 
have been still more rapid had she received the daily, 
hourly expected letter from Aunt Liz, which never 
arrived. For the first week Kissy saw no one but the 
monosyllabic, almost pantomimic Kate, or Madame, or 
the doctor, and she spent long hours with the bed- 
clothes drawn high over her head from which she would 
emerge with bright eyes and cheeks that became thinner 
and thinner. She became whiter and more woebegone 
each day ; and after every visit Madame would sigh 
ruefully, and remark to Madame Laurence : “ But she is 
an ambulant skeleton, the poor thing, and ugly, oh, but 
ugly , ma chire ! I commence to demand of myself that 
which we shall well be able to do with her, after all ? ” 
On the fourth day, Kissy wrote again, herself this 
time, and wildly begged Aunt Liz to answer by return 
of post. This letter, although wept over by Madame, 
was firmly burnt in the kitchen fire. 


104 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

Towards the end of the week Kissy began to question 
Kate about the possibility of the letters having been 
lost. Kate pooh-poohed the idea, but offered to post 
as many more as Kissy liked, or even telegraph. Kissy 
thought of Uncle Tom, hoped he was still in ignorance, 
and refused. 

“ Suppose,” she said to Kate, “ suppose my aunt 
doesn’t answer because she’s so angry she won’t have 
me back ! D’you think I could find some work over 
here ? ” 

“ P’raps,” answered Kate non-committently. 

The next day the Ladies of the House began to pay 
Kissy visits. One or two at a time they wandered in 
in various stages of dress or undress. In the morning 
they wore shabby kimonos that were more or less soiled 
down the front with drips of food, splashes of liquid 
rouge, and flecks of Rimmel. Their faces, naked of 
paint, were weary, and even those who seemed to 
Kissy quite young appeared to be wrinkled and hollow- 
eyed. Later, in the afternoon, they showed themselves 
resplendent in their fripperies and war-paint. At first 
Kissy was horrified by the violence of their make- 
up ; then, little by little, she became accustomed to the 
humid crimson slash of the mouth above the dead- white 
chin ; to the darkly bristling eyelashes and the bistre- 
shaded orbits above rose-tinted cheeks ; absurdly 
unreal, like Japanese porcelain images. 

The soiled morning wrappers were replaced by fluffy, 
lace-trimmed peignoirs of soft -coloured satins and 
crepes . Evening frocks as grand as Cinderella’s ball 
dresses in the Croydon pantomime, and even tailor-made 
suits, severe and yet supremely, elegantly rich. A tall, 
fair Russian girl, who during her visits filled Kissy’s 
tiny room with thick clouds of faint blue smoke from 
the thin, citron-coloured cigarettes she never ceased 
smoking except at meal-time, and even then one still 


THE RUE MACABRE 105 

smouldered by her plate, or while she slept, and then 
an open box and a matchstand stood on the bed-table, 
wore a dScolletS Paquin frock of black velvet, an in- 
credibly real rope of Tecla pearls, and the air of a great 
lady. Her maquillage was more reasonable than that 
of the little ladies in the fluffy wrappers, and she moved 
amongst them with an extraordinary air of breeding and 
magnificence. 

Her name, inevitably, was Olga, though she answered 
equally well to Sonia or Vera. The first time Kissy 
saw her in the black frock, she flatly refused to believe 
that she was the same person who had, a couple of hours 
earlier, sat smoking on the foot of the bed, hunched in 
a faded bath robe of mauve and grey towelling material, 
held together at the waist by a hairpin. 

Kissy watched her with an admiration and awe not 
unmixed with envy. 44 One could get to be chief sales- 
lady in the swellest hat-shop that ever was, with a figure 
and a face and a 4 way ’ like that! ” 

Another exception to the lace and satin peignoir 
uniform was the little American 44 Cora.” She was 
lithe and slim as a boy, and if Kissy had not been re- 
assured by the long, swinging braid of hair, she would 
have instantly decided that Cora was a boy. Except 
in the advertisement pages of the magazines, Kissy had 
never seen a pyjama suit, and the first time Cora slid 
into the room with a 44 Hello, kid, how you was dis 
morning ? ” she hid under the bedclothes, and called 
for Kate. 

44 S ’matter, kid-o ? ” demanded Cora; 44 s’d have thought 
you’d be glad to see a guyl that kin speak your own 
talk ! ” 

And so, discovering that Cora really was a girl, for 
the pig-tail flapped over her shoulder as she bent towards 
the bed, Kissy was reassured and became glad. In the 
afternoon Cora’s slim, corsetless body wriggled into a 


106 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

blue skirt and a red jersey. Her pig-tail was tied with 
a huge bow of crimson ribbon, and a blue tam-o’-shanter 
topped the travesty. 

“ Don’t I look de baby-guyl all right, all right ? ” 
she asked Kissy. “ Say, how old d’you think dis child 
is, hey ? ” Kissy very sincerely estimated eighteen ! 
Cora was delighted. 

“ Got cher guessin’ dis time, little one,” she shrieked. 
“ It’s me for de ol’ ladies’ home for decayed cats soon ! 
Why, I’ll never see thirty again ! Don’t that jolt yuh, 
hey ? ” 

It was Cora who, with true American bluntness, made 
Kissy understand the kind of establishment in which 
she was living. 

To Kissy Cora’s revelation meant but little. If, a 
fortnight ago in London, she had been told the same 
story, she would have been appalled and terrified. That 
she w r as sickened goes without saying ; but she was 
sickened in a pitying, impersonal way. Besides, it did 
not occur to her that any one could possibly expect her 
to become a member of the illusion-selling sisterhood 
to which the girlish Cora, the magnificent Olga, and all 
the little peignoir ladies belonged. She did not, at the 
first moment, see any relation between the information 
Cora had given her, and the damning fact that it was 
by the “ kind stranger’s ” plausible lying that she had 
come to the house in the rue Macabre. As yet Kissy 
was practically incapable of deduction or inference. 
Life, to her, was a series of small or great occurrences 
which rarely seemed to have relationship, and which 
she accepted joyfully, or sadly, in accordance with their 
merits, as they came to her. 

Kissy was like a child learning to read in its first 
primer. “ The cat caught a fat rat.” Full stop, then : 
“ Fan has a fine bat,” and so on. Life was as foolishly 
incoherent as those absurd sentences. 


THE RUE MACABRE 107 

Because they had all been so kind to her, Kissy felt 
no shrinking from the women of the house, but she was 
immensely sorry for them all. She was grateful for the 
illustrated papers they had brought in to amuse her, 
the cigarettes they had given her, and that she had 
refused with an embarrassment which had amused them ; 
of the sweets which, to their evident pleasure, she had 
taken with avidity ; of the little tight bunches of dusty, 
sw'eet-smelling Nice violets ; of the patience they dis- 
played in helping her halting French, and as she thought 
of all this she cried to Cora, opening great eyes in which 
slowly gathering tears brimmed over and trickled un- 
checked down her thin white cheeks : 

“ Oh, I’m so sorry, so very sorry. You poor things ! 
How . . . how awful for you ! ” 

“ You baby, you,” she scoffed defiantly, her hands 
deep in her pockets, her thin straight legs astraddle. 
“ But say, kid, best save up the weeps for yourself ! 
Goodness knows you’ll need ’em before the Madame’s 
finished with yuh l ” 

That night Kissy lay awake in the darkness thinking. 
But even then she did not feel herself to be in any 
personal danger ; her chief thought was : “ What ’ud 
Aunt Liz say ! ” She was tormented by the knowledge 
of that eminently respectable woman’s horror should 
she ever come to learn that Kissy had lived, even so 
innocently, in such a house. 

Because Kissy had been allowed for the last few days 
to get up in the afternoon and sit in a broken-springed 
but gorgeously brocaded arm-chair while her bed was 
being made, she felt, with the optimism of a healthy 
convalescent, sure that she was capable of any exertion. 

She switched on the light. It was past two o’clock. 
Plenty of time to get up quietly, dress, and slip out of 
the house. At the Gare du Nord she would have a nap 
in the waiting-room till the hour of her train arrived. 


108 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

The process of dressing ran smoothly enough, except 
that Kissy found her fingers were clumsy, and there was 
an unpleasant heaviness that weighted each limb. Yet, 
by the time she reached the hairdressing stage, she 
was already practically exhausted, and the effort of lift- 
ing her arms to the summit of her head sent her, trem- 
bling, to rest on the chair. 

For a few seconds she remained immobile. Then the 
dawning fear that she had undertaken more than she 
could achieve drove her to her feet again. 

The task of lacing her boots was slowly accomplished, 
but when she painfully stood upright she was conscious 
of a loud singing in her ears that drowned even the 
metallic ticking of the noisy alarm-clock. The objects 
in the room loomed vaguely through a cloud of yellow 
light edged with violet. From yellow it changed to 
green and crimson, and then gradually dissolved to a 
blue-grey fog that finally subsided to a pale mist that 
bothered her excessively as she walked, a little drunkenly, 
to the corner of the room where her coat hung. Reach- 
ing it, Kissy patted the garment inquiringly to discover 
whether her purse was in the right or left pocket. But 
only the thickness of the material stood between her 
hand and the wall behind the coat. 

Anxiously she seized a fold of the garment and lifted 
it aside like a curtain, gropingly she felt in one pocket, 
then in the other ; nothing. Stumbling twice as she 
went, she ran to the little Japanese basket that now 
stood on a chair near the washstand ; with trembling 
hands she ransacked its contents. 

She stared wildly round. Comprehension was very 
near now. Instinctively she rushed to the door and 
tried the handle. It was locked on the outside. Even 
as Kissy tried the handle, she became aware that she 
had known it would be locked. 

With little stiff steps she reached the bed upon which 


THE RUE MACABRE 109 

she climbed with the clumsy awkward movements of 
a tiny child who wishes to kneel on the slippery seat of 
a tramcar. Blindly She switched off the light, then 
falling forwards on the pillow she cowered and sobbed 
in the darkness till, with the late winter dawn, long 
after the clattering of the milkman’s “ boxes of milk ” 
and the baker’s cart had ceased, she slept heavily and 
silently as if she was dead. 

As usual it was Kate who quietly unlocked the door 
at eight o’clock and entered with Kissy’s bowl of cafS 
au lait and the slab of pain de manage that accompanied 
it. The servant stumbled against the coat which had 
fallen from its peg, then her gaze absorbed the details 
of the disordered room, and of Kissy half-dressed on 
the bed, transmitting those facts to the brain which 
in turn accurately interpreted what the eyes had seen. 
She tiptoed out, closing and locking the door carefully 
behind her. 

Kissy still slept when it opened again. Wrapped 
loosely in the mauve kimono of her corsetless hours 
Madame stood on the threshold. She hooked at the 
door with her slippered heel. It swung slowly at first, 
then, helped with a decided kick, closed with a wall- 
shaking bang. 

Kissy turned on the pillow and, shuddering with a 
suppressed sob even as she opened her eyes, looked at 
the woman who was coming towards the bed. 

With resolute severity, Madame seized the girl’s 
shoulder and shook her. 

“ Come,” she said with grim urbanity, “ lift thyself ; 
it is time that we should have a little conversation, thou 
and me ! ” 


CHAPTER VI 
The Admirable 
I 

Dressed for the evening in all the civilization of boiled 
shirt, black trousers, silk socks, and brilliant shoes, 
Crighton lolled in an excessively oozy and low arm-chair 
and frowned at the fire over the protecting screen of 
his outstretched hands. The white waistcoat and the 
traditional coat with its flappity tails hung over a con- 
venient chair-back, waiting to be exchanged for the 
comfortable wreck of a shooting-jacket he was wearing. 

The fire was an open wood one. Stumpy round logs 
flamed and crackled and charred and fell to the hearth 
and piled their ruins in white-grey ashes between the 
brass-bodied sphinxes across whose backs they lay. 

With a last faint puff of smoke, Crighton’s pipe went 
out. Incredulously he drew suckingly at the mouth- 
piece. His thoughts were evidently abroad, and he 
hardly realized what he was doing, but the cold, acrid 
taste of the nicotine jolted him from his brown study. 

He peered into the bowl of the pipe and then, seeing 
that decidedly it was empty, he leaned forwards and 
rapped it sharply against the bare breast of the nearest 
sphinx. 

It was the first real smoke — he did not count a 
cigarette as a smoke any more than he had counted 
his first egg-and-toast as a square meal — since he had 
been put on his back by a bad attack of grippe ten days 
ago, and he was disappointed to find how small was the 
satisfaction it had afforded him. 

no 


THE ADMIRABLE 111 

Slowly, with the languid movements of a man who 
is just out of bed after a short but debilitating illness, 
and who seems to regret the quiet restfulness of his 
sheets, Crighton stretched himself out of the chair and, 
with evident reluctance, finished dressing. 

Then he went to the writing-table, and sliding open 
a drawer took out a bundle of letters, a woman’s photo- 
graph, some odds and ends that may or may not have 
been shrivelled flowers, and a glove, and returning to 
the fire carefully dropped them into the flames. Because 
the cardboard on which the photo was mounted did not 
bum quickly enough, he kicked the smouldering mass 
into a brighter blaze ; then, seeing that he had tarnished 
the perfect surface of his shoe, he gravely said “Damn ! ” 
and carefully wiped it on the hearthrug. 

When the papers, rubbish, and photographs were 
utterly consumed, he crossed the room to the wall 
where a calendar hung. It was a Helleu dry-point of 
an obviously American and enchanting woman’s head. 
The days of the year formed an oblong block of flimsy 
paper, a sheet for each day, on the dark green mount 
below the portrait. 

With an air of deliberate finality, Crighton peeled off 
the only remaining slip of paper, revealing the yellow 
gummy mark beneath. As he returned to the fireplace 
he tore the scrap into smaller scraps ; these also he 
threw into the flames. Then, struck by the futility of 
these proceedings, he tilted his chin and laughed. 
“ Good Lord ! ” he said, “ how silly! ” 

Outside a snarling automobile horn chug-chugged 
twice impatiently, and throwing on his overcoat and a 
soft black-felt hat — Crighton was too wise to wear a 
topper or a gibus in Paris on a rtveillon night — he banged 
the front door of his bachelor flat and went down to 
join his friends. 


112 


THE BROKEN LAUGH 


II 

Maxim’s, on New Year’s Eve, is the place for a man 
who wants to have that which is called “ a hell of a 
good time.” Now Crighton did not happen to want to 
have that kind of time; but, on the other hand, he 
wanted people to believe that he did. 

He had never cared much for the Diplomatic Service. 
The career was practically forced on him by his mother 
who, for some years before her death, had lived in Paris, 
and had enjoyed hearing herself alluded to as “ one of 
the most prominent members of the English colony.” 
Then, having attained her wish and had the satisfaction 
of seeing him obtain an attacheship, which in time duly 
became a secretaryship, at the city in which she had 
made her home, she hampered his further action by 
indulging in heart attacks every time there had been a 
question of his advancement subsequent of transference 
to more distant lands. A man really keen on the 
Service would, of course, have managed to accomplish 
one of the most difficult tasks in the world, which is 
infusing a little logic and reason into an illogical and 
unreasonable woman’s brain. But Jim was not keen, 
and having inherited an almost sufficient fortune from 
his father, he was content for a few years to live the 
pallid, sheltered life of a mother’s only son. He obedi- 
ently escorted the old lady to the various functions she 
desired to grace and patronize, he played mild games of 
polo at Bagatelle, and in the same neighbourhood shot 
inoffensive pigeons without greatly desiring to. He 
enjoyed a few superficial passages with various actri - 
cettes from the Capucines and Bouffes Theatres ; and 
a couple of more serious “ affairs.” One, when his 
upper lip was yet fluffy, with a henna-haired siren of 
aunt-like years, and another, by the time the moustache 
had bristled into toothbrush perfection, with a tern- 


THE ADMIRABLE 113 

pestuous Italian dame burdened with an hysterical 
husband. This affair almost ended badly. The tem- 
pestuous dame was all for avowing the truth to the 
hysterical husband, flying with Jim to the uttermost 
ends of the wide, wide world. This, naturally, when 
Jim was already tired of his rose-garlanded chains. The 
diplomacy which was needed, and which Jim managed 
to display in calming down and disposing of the lady, 
showed what a career he might have enjoyed in the 
Service had he chosen. 

He all the more devoted his energies to the hushing- 
up of the event because his mother, in Cannes at the 
time, was excessively unwell ; and when, a few weeks 
later, he was called to her death-bed Jim was glad to 
think that no echo of the ridiculous and none too 
creditable affair had reached her ears. 

She had been too unwise, too egoisticallv autocratic 
a mother, for Jim to feel much else than a pitiful regret 
at her loss. 

Very quickly, in the quiet months that followed, he 
came to realize the uselessness of his life. He began to 
know the depressing “ what’s-the-good-of-anything ” 
feeling — the mournfully replete feeling that comes not 
of one or two exquisite dinners, but of a prolonged bout 
of gormandizing. He was conscious of vague tendencies 
towards Socialism, which he tried to appease by bestow- 
ing the contents of his cigar-case on crossing-sweepers 
and taxi-drivers and by lunching at Duval’s instead 
of Durand’s. Chancing to enter the church of the 
Madeleine one day while an Office was in performance, 
and becoming sensuously affected by the singing of a 
particularly seraphic-voiced chorist, he hesitated for 
a \while over the attraction of the Roman Church, and 
thought to find in religion the cure he could so easily 
have found in mere work. However, in a more lucid 
moment he remembered that as a Roman Catholic he 

B 


114 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

would have to submit to the probing crudeness of the 
confessional, and his fundamentally healthy soul revolted 
at the idea. Then, flying from one extreme to the other, 
the next phase of his moral unrest carried him into 
the materialistic domains of science : Buchner, Haekel, 
Page, and Huxley became his livres de chevet , and the 
enlightening common sense that, in spite of quite a little 
skipping, he culled from the thickly printed pages of 
the already yellow-leaved and fast-ageing volumes very 
quickly dispelled his masculine vapours. 

One night as he switched off the light after a prolonged 
study of Buchner’s “ L’Homme selon la Science ” — he 
was reading the French translation by Letoumeau — 
he grinned a particularly boyish grin. 

“ At last,” he remarked to the flaming catherine- 
wheels that danced under his eyelids in the sudden 
darkness, “ at last I understand the meaning of ‘ the 
mighty atom ’ ! Jimmy, you’re a bright boy ! Go up 
one ! ” Then he flopped over on his side, tucked one 
arm under the pillow, and went peacefully to sleep. 

Next morning he wakened with the desire to hit a 
bigger man than himself between the eyes, and not 
finding the bigger man, had to fall back on the slaughter- 
ing of tame pigeons. This manly pastime proving even 
more revolting than usual in his new mood, he returned 
to the Embassy and in three-quarters of an hour accom- 
plished the work that would have comfortably filled out 
the usual working hours of any other day. 

After which he sought out his chief and made various 
requests and suggestions. 

The chief took up a perfectly justified but exasperating 
better-late-than-never attitude, and intimated that now 
Mr. J. Crighton would have to wait till the powers-that- 
be renewed the offers that had, not so long ago, been so 
discouragingly received. 

Jimmy recognized the justice of this, and meekly 


THE ADMIRABLE 115 

determined to wait with the best possible grace he could 
manage. The waiting changed his life but little except 
that, doing his work with greater energy, he found it 
less and less adequate to his new requirements, and at 
last realizing the waiting as waiting he fretted at the 
waste of his time, past and present. 

Then he fell in love. She was a very ordinary, charm- 
ing pink-and- white English girl, just free from the irk- 
somenesses of a fashionable finishing school near Paris. 
Daintily gauche and timid, with flashes of moods that 
were disconcertingly daring and hoydenish. 

The idea of an engagement was not welcomed by the 
girl’s people, who considered Jim, truthfully enough, as 
a slacker. It was decided that the affair would not be 
made official 4 4 just yet ” ; and that they would 44 see 
about it ” when Jim had managed to grasp and clamber 
up a fresh rung of the diplomatic ladder. 

Jim and Alice, therefore, drifted into one of those 
unsatisfactory relationships that are as trying to the 
spectators as they are to the two chief persons con- 
cerned. 

This state of affairs lasted several months. Then 
Alice, secretly somewhat relieved to go, departed to a 
winter sports paradise in Switzerland, leaving Jimmy 
to unquestioned bachelor joys and to his waiting. 

In the middle of December, after Alice had been gone 
a little over a month, Jimmy’s waiting was rewarded by 
the official intimation that the post of first secretary 
at a small Balkan Court was open to him. On the same 
afternoon, coincidence brought an express letter from 
Alice, telling him that she had made a mistake, that she 
was beginning to realize that perhaps after all her 
parents had been right, and she was too young to really 
know her own mind. 

Jimmy minded, more than anything else, the fact 
that she had sent the letter by express. 


116 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

It made her seem in such a humiliating hurry to be 
rid of him ! 

In the angry twenty-four hours that followed, he 
composed half a dozen masterpieces of masculine sar- 
casm, which he tore up. Also an official refusal of the 
Balkan offer, together with his absolute resignation from 
the Service — which he did not tear up. Then the next 
day he was bowled over by the violent attack of grippe 
from which he had only just recovered. This New Year 
rtoeillon would be the first time he was setting foot 
outside the fiat since the map of his future was blurred 
by a silly girl who ought — he had said in one of the 
burnt epistles — to be playing with dolls still instead of 
with a Man’s heart. “ Man ” with a capital letter. 

During his convalescence he was surprised to find 
how angry he was. He felt that he ought to have been 
able to think of her with sweet regret and magnanimity, 
and he was conscious all the time that whenever he did 
think of her — which was far less often than one would 
have imagined — he only wanted to shake her. 

Most of the time he was thinking about the wonderful 
journey round the world he was going to make. First 
he would stretch his legs over at least three continents, 
and then, when he had looked round and chosen deci- 
sively, he would settle down to work, real work. What 
the Americans call a “ man-size ” job. 

He was a little hazy as to what kind of work it would 
be, but he was intensely earnest and sure that it would 
be work all right. 

All men are children, and the man of thirty who has 
never known what it is to wonder where the next meal 
is to come from is an even more than usually optimistic 
specimen of a child. 

Jimmy realized that up till now he had been playing 
at living. With a certain satisfaction he admitted that 
he had made a very fair success of his play, and he was 


THE ADMIRABLE 117 

calmly convinced that, if he set his mind to it, he could 
make an equally fine success of the work. 

Jimmy was not very keen about this r&ueillon at 
Maxim’s with a crowd cf fellows from the Embassies ; 
but people knew, or guessed, that Alice had “ changed 
her mind,” and Jimmy was afraid that if he stayed 
away it would look as if he was moping ; not that he 
cared a damn, of course, about what people thought, 
but still . . . ! 

Besides he had always rSveillonni with other fellows 
of his kind on New Year’s Eve. For the last five years 
it had been an immutable rite. 

But as he looked round at the other men in the big 
limousine that was speeding in swift silence down the 
Champs-Elysees towards the rue Royale, he noticed 
with an uncomfortable tightening at the heart tliat 
though he was certainly one of the oldest he was yet 
the one who had the least to show for his years. None 
of the companions that were with him five years ago 
were present this year. They were scattered all over 
the globe, working to attain the goal that he for so 
many years had lost sight of. 

Unconsciously he clenched his fist ; the muscles of 
the forearm crept and tensed. 

“ By God,” he vowed, “ I’ll be in at the death all 
the same ! ” Then he relaxed and softly expelled a 
deep, long breath. The car swung into the rue Royale 
and stopped. Before the little red-jacketed chasseur 
could cross the pavement, Jimmy had opened the door 
and jumped out. 

“ Come on, you fellows,” he cried, “ this is the parting 
splurge and I want to make the most of it ! ” 

III 

Even before he opened his eyes, Jim was conscious 
that, somewhere in his field of vision, a bright blur of 


118 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

light was tormenting his retina. With an uneasy 
grimace he moved his tongue in his mouth and then 
swallowed slowly, as if he had a sore throat. The lines 
of the mouth drew tightly across the teeth as a feeling 
of nausea disquieted him. A frown of anger that such 
unusual sensations should be his creased his forehead, 
then he opened his eyes. 

Dislodged by the frown, and the slight movement of 
the eyes, something damply cold slipped from his fore- 
head, and descending over his face obscured his vision. 
Impatiently he raised his hand to tear the cold, clinging 
thing away, and in so doing became conscious, by a 
certain drag and restriction between shoulder and elbow, 
that though he was lying down, and in bed seemingly, 
since it was certainly a pillow his left cheek was pressing, 
he was still fully dressed. Not quite fully dressed, 
perhaps, for he felt certain he had no collar on. 

Curiously he looked at the bandage he held in his 
hand. It was a handkerchief folded into a four-inch 
band. It had that grey look common to all city- washed 
linen when it is sodden. There was a familiar smell 
about it, and Jimmy sniffed again, with reminiscence. 
Toilet vinegar, that’s what it was, Vinaigre de Bully 
probably. He remembered the stuff so well. The tall, 
square bottle that had always stood on his mother’s 
night-table. Then in the next thought-flash he was 
conventionally annoyed with himself for having thought 
of his mother just then, for instinctively he recognized 
the kind of room in w r hich he was. 

He looked round curiously. There was his collar, at 
all events, with his dangling white tie looped round the 
bedpost. The bright blur that still annoyed him came 
from a large silver ewer standing in a silver basin in the 
centre of an immense, dark-marble lavabo , that w r as 
half-hidden from the rest of the room behind a tall and 
vaste gold-embroidered screen. A ray of yellow light — 


THE ADMIRABLE 119 

subconsciously Jim resolved to investigate its source — 
shone against the rounded paunch of the ewer, crushed 
there in a bright splash of luminosity. His gaze wan- 
dered over the immense unnecessarily numerous mirrors. 
He noted ironically the very poor copies of a couple of 
excessively dScolleU Fragonards that w r ere hung in bril- 
liantly gilded frames in the centre of the vieux rose 
brocade panels that faced the foot of the bed, and he 
wondered what the rest of the room, behind him, was 
like. It was from there the light came, but he was yet 
too heavy and clumsy with sleep to summon the energy 
to move his body. 

Even the roaming movement of his eyes had made 
him dizzy. He closed them tightly and pressed the 
cool, wet bandage to their lids. 

Angrily his mind constructed the only possible explana- 
tion of what had occurred. 

He had been drunk, of course. The state of his head 
and his mouth was sufficient proof of that. 

But the fact was almost incomprehensible. Such a 
thing had never happened to him before, or, at any rate, 
not so completely as this. There had been certain polo 
dinners and wine parties in his early manhood, where 
he had seen some of his companions — who had drunk 
much less than he — sleeping with legs asprawl and head 
on arms amongst the plates ; but he himself had always 
been able to keep his head up, his legs steady, and his 
tongue under control. Secretly he felt a certain amount 
of pride at the fact which was doubled with a tinge of 
contemptuous pity for the weaker-headed souls who 
babbled in their cups and became foolish human beasts. 

Well, evidently he had come a mucker this time. 
Possibly his illness had something to do with it. He 
had not felt particularly fit, decidedly woozy, in fact, 
even before starting. He remembered how regretfully 
he had exchanged the old shooting-jacket for his dress- 


120 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

coat. Then he recalled the sensation that had burned 
him as he drove down the Champs-Elysees, his resolution 
to “ make good.” He thought of his excited announce- 
ment that this was to be his parting splurge ! Why, he 
was half-drunk with excitement even before entering 
the restaurant. The very first glass of champagne must 
have gone instantaneously to his head, and naturally 
the boys had made the most of it. It was too perfect 
an opportunity to get Jim’s shoulders on the matting. 
Jim’s cheeks burned as he imagined how uproariously 
they must have laughed and winked to each other, and 
slapped him on the back as they filled, and filled, and 
filled again his glass. 

And then, of course, they played the old joke on him 
that has been played by foolish boy-men in all cities 
since cities exist. 

He could imagine the grotesque helplessness of his 
exit from the restaurant. How he must have dozed 
and nodded in the car as it drove to its destination. He 
could see himself stumbling across the pavement of a 
quiet street, held up and supported by his chuckling 
companions whose steps probably were none too steady 
either. He saw himself propped carefully against the 
door that he imagined to be the door of his own house — 
one of the old-world portes-coclicres of Paris that are all 
so much alike — he heard the voices, full of suppressed 
laughter, that must have asked him, “ Sure you can 
manage now, old man ? ” He could guess his mumbled, 
dignified answer ; then no doubt one of them rang the 
bell, and they all rushed back to the car and were 
swirled away before the door opened. 

Jim imagined the opening of the door. The yawning 
gap into which he most certainly must have fallen ! He 
wondered if he had startled the people of the house, or 
whether they were used to such events . . . then un- 
consciously he spoke aloud, in English : 


121 


THE ADMIRABLE 

“ Hope I didn’t make too big a fool of myself,” was 
what he said. 

From somewhere behind him, a voice answered in the 
same language : “ Of course you haven’t, but it’s a 
blessing Madame had some extra big mats put down 
in the hall, otherwise you might have cracked your head 
open on the flags, you’re so very much more than extra 
tall, you see.” 

Then the matter-of-fact voice changed and became 
infused with maternal solicitude. “ Is your head very 
bad ? Would you like some tea ? ” it asked. 

Jim slewed round on the bed with a sudden jerk that 
set every nerve in his head throbbing, and made him 
keenly alive to the acute physical discomfort of sleeping 
in dress-clothes. His braces tugged like leathern bands 
over his shoulders, his coat, waistcoat, stiff-fronted shirt, 
and trousers seemed to be pressing into him with in- 
numerable knife edges : he also had an uncomfortable 
sensation, as if sand had been poured down his back. 
Propped on his elbow hip stared at the speaker. 

He saw a slim girl in a black frock lightened with 
demure white muslin collar and cuffs ; she was sitting 
by a little table on which a green-shaded lamp stood ; 
the shade was slightly torn at one place, and Jim noticed 
that it was through this slit that the ray of light shone 
which, reflecting into the silver ewer, had dazzled him. 

In the girl’s lap lay some fluffy white sewing. She 
sat between him and the light, and he could not see her 
features properly, only that she had very big dark eves. 
He could tell also that she had dark hair in great quanti- 
ties, for it was piled high on her head and made her 
neck seem very slim in comparison ; that it was dark 
he knew because of the red-gold nimbus that glowed 
tremulously in the lamplight. 

It was Kissy-Girl. Kissy after nearly a year’s tranquil 


122 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

existence in the rue Macabre, Kissy-Girl who had become 
— not what Madame, Cora, Kate, Alphonse, Madame 
Laurence, the man in the street, or you and I would 
have made certain she would become in that house, but 
the betwixt and between of a secretary, lady’s ma.d, 
lingerie- mender, morning -chocolate carrier, and general 
female factotum to the establishment. 

The “ little conversation ” Madame had proposed to 
have duly took place, but it proved to be an encounter 
in which the “ merchant of Venus ” was very completely 
routed. 

At first Madame spoke, and Kissy listened silently. 
This silence exasperated Madame into threats that alter- 
nated with cajolery and promises of reward to come if 
only Kissy would be a good girl and do what she was 
told. 

For a long time Kissy remained silent. While Madame 
raved and gibbered, she was trying to reconstruct the 
plans that had been so thoroughly shattered. She 
gathered up the fragments and tried to frame them into 
some kind of homogeneity. 

It w r as a brave endeavour, and she accomplished it 
grimly as one fights for one’s life. With her fingers over 
her eyes, and her thumbs pressed into her ears to keep 
out the sight and sound of Madame’ s windmill gestures 
and shrill tones, Kissy had thought hard and desperately. 
Then she had looked up and declared her will. 

“ Send for Cora,” she said, in the halting school-board 
French that had had such little time to improve and yet 
had so astonishingly done so : “ Send for Cora. I do 
not speak yet this language as I wish, and it is important 
that I be understood.” 

To Cora Kissy spoke thus : “ Tell her this,” she said, 
“ and mind you make it clear. She says that now I’m 
here I have to stay, because no one’ll take me in after 
this.” Kissy waved her hand comprehensively. “ She 


128 


THE ADMIRABLE 

says my aunt won’t have me back, nor nobody, and so 
I’d better make the best of it. Well, that’s what I’m 
going to do. But she wants me to make the worst of 
it ; not the best. True, I’m in this place ; but I’ve 
done no harm, and it’s through no fault of mine I’m 
here ! I’m not any wickeder now than I was when I 
came that first night, thinking nothing but gratefulness 
of that man of Madame’s who gave me the address, and 
said it was a quiet respectable place. 

“ And I mean to stay as I am ; I’m not a good girl, 
I know, but I don’t mean to go any wronger than I 
have. 

“Now you listen carefully, Cora, and you tell her 
this. I dare say she can come pretty near forcing me 
to do what she wants ; but what’d be the good ? She’d 
have to beat me, or starve me, or wellnigh kill me first, 
and then I’d be a pretty-looking object, wouldn’t I ? 
And think of the rows there’d be, and the time and the 
trouble it ’ud take her ! And even then there’s that 
about taking a horse to water — you know ! And if she 
did get so mad that she’d end by almost killing me, I 
can’t believe it wouldn’t be a worse trouble for her than 
for me. Murder will out, and murder’s murder every- 
where. Besides it wouldn’t be worth it. Look what 
lots of you there are here already, and miles prettier 
than me, and who don't mind. What good’d I be to her 
that way ? But listen, Cora, I’ll tell you what : I know 
I must stay here, and I know I must work, and I’m 
willing. But I’ll work my own way. I’m grateful, too, 
I am that ! She was good to me that first night and 
the days afterwards, and I’m not forgetting. 

“ Tell her this : I can sew ; I can make dresses and 
under-things and hats, and I can darn so that the mend- 
ing looks almost better than the new. I can do house- 
work and a bit of cooking, too, and if she’ll let me work 
that way I’ll make her the best servant she’s ever had. 


124 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

Tell her that. Make her understand, Cora. It’s simple 
reason. She can’t say it isn’t. You tell her what I say, 
tell her like as if it was for you ! You will, won’t you, 
Cora ? Make her understand. I’ll — I’d do anything 
for you, I’ll work for you, too, like a slave, Cora. 
I’ll ” 

Kissy’s thin little arms in the coarse night-gown 
strained appealingly towards the American girl, who 
with a deft movement of the tongue shifted the chew'ing- 
gum of her off-duty .hours from the left cheek to the 
right, and sniffed profoundly. 

“ Quit it, kid,” she said, “ or it’s me fde water- 
works. I’ll see you throo in dis. The Madame ain’t 
no fool an’ I’ll make her see de sense dere is in dat think- 
box o’ yourn. Leave it t'me an’ watch my smoke.” 

Dry-mouthed and tense, Kissy watched and listened 
and tried to make sense of the few words she managed 
to recognize from the swift phrases that were hurled 
backwards and forth. 

Eagerly she abandoned herself to Cora’s rapid gestures 
when, rushing to the bedside, she seized Kissy’s wrist, 
and rolling up the loose sleeve showed the white pipe- 
stem arms to Madame, and with scornful forefinger 
pointed to the deep hollows under the neck. 

“ Yes,” she cried next moment in answer to Cora’s 
rapid question. “ I made it all myself, and in the basket 
there’s some little things I couldn’t bear not to bring, 
that are all hand-made, too, tucks and stitching and 
all.” 

Cora and Kissy watched mutely while Madame care- 
fully inspected the alpaca frock and certain minute 
garments that she found in the Japanese basket. While 
she handled the latter Kissy followed every movement 
with savage intentness, but the mother-feeling is strong 
in all French women — yea, even such as these, O narrow- 
minded reader who objects— and Madame examined 


THE ADMIRABLE 125 

them with due reverence and carefully folded them back 
in their tissue-paper sheath. 

For awhile she became silent and ruminative, and 
Cora, knowing she had done her best and could do no 
more, was silent also. At length Madame looked up 
and smiled, the sudden mischievous smile of a market 
fishwife who ceases to haggle and, although she has 
sold her goods at a lower price than she first named, is 
still more than content with her bargain. She came to 
the bedside and pinched Kissy's cheek. “It is well,” 
she said, “ we shall see ! In waiting do not make thyself 
any bile, little one, all will finish by arranging itself.” 

She went away, leaving Kissv and Cora astounded at 
the completeness of her capitulation. Impulsively they 
kissed, then hastily Cora turned tail and fled. There 
was that in Kissy’s expression of triumphant relief which 
made Cora want to box her ears for being an adjectived 
little prig, and yet which made her feel more shamed 
than she had ever done in all her reckless life. 

V 

“ Would you like some tea, Monsieur ? ” asked Kissy 
for the second time, as she rose and put her sewing on 
the little table. Her scissors slipped and fell with a 
metallic tinkle to the floor. Bending to recover them 
her shoulder brushed the lampshade and tilted it so 
that their faces were illuminated. 

The mutual recognition was instantaneous. 

“ I say . . . ! ” said Jim, and stopped short. 

There was an embarrassing silence, and Kissy, having 
picked up her scissors, began to cut a cotton end into 
very minute lengths without looking up. 

“ I s’pose you must have thought I was crazy,” she 
said at last ; there was a hint of angry accusation in her 
voice, and the scissors chittered rapidly. 

“Oh f no,” answered Jim politely, “but I thought 


120 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

perhaps it was a joke or a bet or something like that, 

you know ’ ’ He trailed o ff the sentence suggestively, 

and waited ; but Kissy only looked at the door. 

“ Would you like a cup of tea ? ” she asked. 

Jim noticed the look and interrupted it. 

“ I would like it,” he told her, “ but I’d rather talk 
to you.” 

“ But Madame said I was to call her, or Madame 
Laurence, as soon as you woke. Besides I never talk 
to visitors. Indeed, I never come into these rooms at 
all, only that last week, on Christmas morning, there 
was a German gentleman left at the door like you, and 
when he woke he was so angry he smashed some furniture 
and did lots of damage. So when you arrived, and all 
the ladies were engaged, Madame woke me and said I’d 
better bring in my sewing and sit here till you came to, 
and call her in time if you seemed angry.” 

Jim swung his legs over the edge of the bed, and 
standing up put a detaining hand on Kissy ’s arm as 
she passed him going towards the door. 

“ Please don’t go yet,” he begged. 

The sudden movement appeared to terrify the girl. 

“ Leggo,” she almost screamed ; “ leggo, don’t touch 
me, you haven’t got the right.” 

Jim drew back swiftly and retreated to the other side 
of the room. This, he felt, was rather pitiful. 

“ Please,” he begged, “ please, don’t be frightened 
like that, it’s awful. On my honour I haven’t the 
slightest wish to annoy you. I’m really awfully sorry 
if I frightened you at all. It was the last thing I wanted 
to do.” 

Kissy paused at the door. “ I’ll tell Madame, and 
some one’ll bring you your tea.” She put her hand on 
the handle, in another moment she would have been 
gone. From where he stood Jim made another appeal. 

“ Won’t you listen to me?” he said. “ I’ve told you 


THE ADMIRABLE 127 

I don’t want to hurt or frighten you. Surely you can 
trust an Englishman ! ” 

“ No l ” answered Kissy flatly, “ I can’t,” but never- 
theless she did not complete her gesture with the door 
handle. The reply somewhat staggered Jim at the 
instant it was made, but then everything had been 
staggering him for the last ten minutes. 

“ Well,” he said, “ if you won’t trust me, I’ll trust 
you ! I’ll tj:ust you to go and get that cup of tea we’ve 
been talking about, and bring it back here yourself 
without dragging any more Madames into the question.” 

He spoke in a cool hiatter-of-fact tone. “ Hurry, 
there’s a good child,” he continued, “ I want to hear 
all about this business.” 

“ There’s nothing to hear ” 

“ Then you’ll have to make up something ! Be 
quick — and remember I trust you to come back ! ” 

As the door closed behind Kissy, Jim switched on the 
lights and went behind the screen to investigate. There 
was cold water in the ewer as well as in the “ hot ” 
water can. He splashed a brimming supply into the 
basin, and then taking off his coat dipped his head under 
the surface and held it there for several seconds while 
the water bubbled and rippled and flowed over. 

When he emerged the headache had considerably 
diminished, and he grunted and blew with relief as he 
dried himself on one of the towels taken from a many- 
branched glass rack that sprouted out of the wall near 
the wash stand. 

With a final rub he, manlike, dropped the damp linen 
to the ground and picked up a crackling paper bag. It 
was sealed with a blue parchment seal, on which was 
stamped in white the word sttrilis6. He also unpacked 
and made use of a comb, and a nailbrush. 

Then noticing the array of cut-glass toilet flasks he 
unstoppered and sniffed them one by one. With eau- 


128 


THE BROKEN LAUGH 

de-Cologne and water he compounded an opalescent 
mixture which, with visible satisfaction, he used as a 
mouth-wash. 

Already the reflection that faced him in the glass was 
more familiar. But the unshaven chin and the crumpled 
shirt-front, not innocent of stains, looked horribly un- 
Jim-like. Taking his collar from the bedpost he examined 
it carefully and kicked it behind the screen in disgust ; 
he rummaged in his overcoat pockets for his evening 
muffler, then with the folds of white silk neatly swathed 
round his neck and across his chest, and his overcoat 
buttoned, Jim sat down and waited to see if the strange 
girl with the pale mouth and the vivid eyes would return. 

VI 

“ Why, it’s just like home,” cried Kissy in a delighted 
whisper ; and you could see that she was trying hard 
not to clap her hands, which would have been very 
undignified. Madame had impressed upon her the 
necessity of decorous behaviour ! 

It was the Christmas decoration of the Chatham grill- 
room in the rue Daunou that so enchanted her. 

Holly and mistletoe, a week old and more than a 
little faded, but holly and mistletoe nevertheless. Also 
there were flags, flags of many nations, for the habitues 
of the Chatham are extremely cosmopolitan. 

Kissy had after all brought back the tea, and while 
Jim sipped it slowly, carefully avoiding looking at her 
too pointedly, he managed to coax from her, in reluctant 
fragments, the story of her arrival in Paris, and the 
reason of that desperate journey. 

“You poor little soul,” he called her; and because it 
was his photograph that had misled Kissy and brought 
her to France, he somehow felt a slight sensation of 
responsibility stirring within him. 

He also felt the very comprehensible desire to smite 


THE ADMIRABLE 129 

with his clenched fist, very neatly and squarely, in the 
centre of the face, the unknown man who was his photo- 
graphic double. 

Later he learned with undisguised relief that “ ever 
since ” Kissy had “ earned her keep honestly,” and that 
she was quite contented to pass her days in a little'attic- 
bedroom mending mountainous piles of frilly peignoirs , 
silk stockings, and house-linen, or running out to accom- 
pany Madame on brief shopping expeditions to the 
Galeries Lafayette, the Bon Marche, and the Louvre. 

Then also she sometimes descended to the kitchens 
to make tea for English visitors and bake tea-cakes, 
and the ladies insisted on her compounding, at least 
once a fortnight, a dish of Indian curry for the familial 
midday dejeuner at which she assisted. 

The other meals, Jim understood, Kissy took in her 
room or down in the kitchen. Breakfast happened for 
her at an hour when the ladies were still sleeping ; and 
dinner or supper were usually sketchy meals which every- 
body snatched at elastic hours whenever they could. 

This remark sent Jim’s hand flying to his watch. 
Past two o’clock, long past dSjeuner time. Kissy con- 
fessed that to-day she had not yet lunched. 

Five minutes later Madame electrified the establish- 
ment by announcing that a mad Englishman, who had 
tumbled into the house last night “ drunk as all Poland,” 
and had slept without stirring till midday, had the inten- 
tion, in all goodness, all honour, of taking the little 
English one out to lunch. One had never seen such a 
thing ! But what would you that one should say, the 
gentleman was willing to pay for the derangement of 
taking the girl away from her sewing, and had made 
no complaints about the bill and the price of the mirror 
that, he was told, had been broken in getting him up- 
stairs, and so, my faith, there was nothing to be said 
against it ! 


130 


THE BROKEN LAUGH 

“ The question is,” concluded Madame, “ what shall 
one well be able to put on her back that she may do 
us honour ? ” 

In an incredibly short space of time Kissy’s room was 
littered with finery of all descriptions. Impossible hats 
and feather-boas that dated from the Exhibition of 1900. 
Crumpled voluminous petticoats of stiff and vivid silks, 
spangled dinner-dresses that looked as if they had trailed 
through the dust of all the theatres of Europe, tarnished 
“ gold ” vanity-bags ! Strings of barbaric beads threaded 
on bright silk strands, nondescript gloves, and even a 
pair of pink silk mittens. 

Luckily Madame was too wise a woman to make any 
sartorial error that really mattered, and she shook her 
head over the mass of proffered finery. 

Her own sober well-cut street clothes, those she wore 
during shopping trips, when Kissy accompanied her 
bareheaded as little French lower-class servants do, 
were naturally out of the question. Her waist measure- 
ments would have enveloped Kissy thrice over, and 
Madame Laurence was too tall. 

“ One must let her go as she is,” was the ultimate 
decision. “ After all, the gentleman knows that Kiss} 
is only a little working-girl.” They brushed Kissy’s 
black alpaca with a damp brush till it hung from her 
in speckless folds, and did some rapid manicuring and 
hair-brushing. A new muslin collar was pinned with 
her mother’s brooch. 

As a reward for her work, and on the principle that 
“ one must attach to oneself one’s domestics,” Madame 
had given Kissy the money to redeem the box she had 
pawned. In Kissy’s case this was a wise move, for 
Kissy was gratitude personified. 

After Madame herself helped Kissy into her old travel- 
ling-coat, and Cora had settled the little fur cap on her 
head with a rakish slant that Madame reprovingly 


131 


THE ADMIRABLE 

rectified, she took the girl’s face between her hands and 
kissed her ; Cora, too, insisted on a kiss. The other 
ladies chorused their wishes for Kissy’s good amuse- 
ment, and their expectations that on her return she 
would recount all that happened. 

Down in the hail Kissy waited for Jim to return and 
fetch her. He had gone home to change and shave. 
She put on her gloves ver^ carefully, buttoning every 
button, nervously patting and smoothing the creases 
into the wrist. 

Her heart beat with joyous anticipation. It was 
pleasant to be envied by the ladies, and she was flattered 
by the respectful quality of Madame’s parting kiss. She 
had enjoyed the bustle and sensation her adventure was 
causing, she was proud of the peremptory way Jim had 
overruled Madame’s objections and excuses. Although 
her cheeks burned at the implication of the crinkling 
blue note that had passed from the man’s strong hand 
into Madame’s white and flabby palm, she could lose 
sight of that unpleasant incident in recalling the rich 
masculine drawl of his voice when he said : “ But 

Madame misunderstands. Mademoiselle is my country- 
woman, I shall be honoured to eat my New Year 
luncheon in her company.” 

The instinctive terror she had felt when he touched 
her arm had quite vanished. 

Already she was quite sure that Jim was a different 
man to the cad in the dinner-jacket, or to the masculine 
creatures Cora spoke of in unreproducible terms. 

She understood dimly that out of the accidental advent 
of Jim might come some little good for herself, though 
she had no standards by which she might judge, and 
no means of guessing in what manner of ways that good 
might come. She only knew that a “ real gentleman ” 
was treating her just as if she was a “ real lady.” 

Well, she would mind her language and her manners, 


182 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

and try to make a good impression. She was certain 
he felt sorry for her ; he had said as much in a voice 
that sounded as if he meant it. There was nothing to 
do but be grateful for the present — and to make the 
most of it. Afterwards one would see. 

VII 

So Kissy sat demurely facing Jim in an advantageous 
corner from which one could see the whole of the small 
middle-room of the Chatham grill-room. 

She trembled a little with excitement, and Jim, 
thinking she was cold, signed to the waiter to bring her 
one of those polished brown-earthenware foot warmers 
that are called “ bricks ” in the vernacular. 

This careless forestalling of the unexpressed struck 
Kissy as being the acme of courtesy ; and although the 
hot brick scorched her through the thin house-shoes she 
had been obliged to wear because her boots were not, 
in Madame’s parlance, “ take-outable,” she cherished the 
discomfort eagerly, and wondered if the ladies could be 
got to believe such a thing possible. 

Wisely, in order to give her time to make herself at 
home, Jim did not appeal to Kissy during the elabora- 
tion of the menu. While the mailre (Photel murmured 
culinary suggestion with a professionally diffident and 
furtive air, Kissy took stock of her surroundings. 

She had never been in a place like this before, but she 
was certain that it was to such restaurants as these her 
father had taken her mother. 

She liked the restfully dark woodwork, the cosy 
screened and panelled recesses, the spotless purity and 
the air of newness of the napery, the glassware, and the 
silver ; the carefully and becomingly shaded lamps, 
the subdued gleam of some porcelain tiles, the delicate 
laciness and scent of the forced, pallid lilac that feathered 
from slim crystal vases, the subaqueous verdancy of a 


THE ADMIRABLE 133 

bank of ferns seen through panes of ornamental coloured 
glass. 

“ And there were things,” concluded Kissy, “that 
you’d only expect to see in gentlemen’s houses.” 

A dignified grandfather-clock amazed her with its 
solemn tick-tack, and the carpets had patterned edges 
instead of being “ strips sewn together,” like in the tea- 
room of the printemps shops, and an open fireplace in 
which wooden logs blazed in a homely fashion. The 
house in the rue Macabre was steam-heated, and as 
Kissy looked at the dancing flames she felt the longing 
to hold out her hands as in greeting to a long-missed 
friend. 

“ What will you drink ? ” asked Jim suddenly. 

“ Water, please,” answered Kissy, coming to attention 
with a perceptible start. 

“ What kind. Evian, Perrier, Vittel, or, ugh ! 
Vichy ? ” 

“ Just ordinary water— none of those , please ! ” 

The hors-d'oeuvre that soon dotted the surface of the 
table like tiny parterres enchanted Kissy’s fancy. The 
miniature golf-balls of butter, the warm orangey tint of 
the smoked salmon, the glossy appearance of the varie- 
gated sauces that disguised diversely shaped fragments 
of egg, the surprising treatment of such common things 
as mussels, the rich purple of the pickled red-cabbage, 
the silvery iridescence of the mackerel en daube, the 
tenderly pink immensity of those swollen-looking prawns, 
the beady varnished look of the olives, so like rosary 
beads, the appalling redness of the newly sliced saucis- 
son , the mound of common grey shrimps that nearly 
brought tears to Kissy’s eyes with their reminder of the 
little back-kitchen at home in Croydon, the rich scarlet 
of the tomato salad, the golden- white symphony of egg 
and celery, and the tender green of the cucumber. 

There were . . . two, four, eight, eleven, fourteen 


184 


THE BROKEN LAUGH 

different dishes ! Kissy had never dreamt of such a 
variegated profusion of richly dressed and daintily 
served food. 

The marvellous part of it was that in spite of all 
those sauces there were no drips or splashes anywhere. 
Kissy wondered by what magic the food had been con- 
veyed into the little oval saucers, surely no human hand 
had been able to achieve that white, gold-banded margin 
of immaculate porcelain. 

Also she could not help thinking of the time and the 
work it must have taken to mix all the sauces and deck 
the little dishes ; it seemed to her that some one must 
have been chopping parsley and beating mayonnaise 
for a lifetime — the thought was discomforting, she won- 
dered if she had the right to spoil such a wonderful effect 
in the mere appeasement of hunger. 

Then she noticed that the handles of countless forks 
and spoons were offering themselves and awaiting her 
choice. 

“ It’s like a millionaire doll’s party,” she said at last, 
looking up at Jim. 

“ Why, yes, it is rather,” he agreed, and gently pushed 
some of the raviers slightly towards her — he wished she 
would hurry, he was hungry. 

Kissy hesitated and then bravely framed the question : 

“ Can I choose f ” she whispered. 

“ Of course,” said Jim cheerily, “ that’s what they’re 
there for. Try some of this, and this, oh — and this 1 
Here let me help you,” and with what Kissy thought was 
almost shameful recklessness he dived with devastating 
results into four or five different dishes. 

They had the most exquisite flavours these little — 
what was it he called them ? Ah, yes, “ do-dabs,” and 
the velvety looking sauces melted on the tongue with 
a rich fugitive creaminess that was most fascinating. 

Jim helped himself to shiimps, and Kissy watched 


THE ADMIRABLE 185 

him breathlessly. Was there some particularly polite 
and high-bred way of eating shrimps she wondered. 

If there was, then Jim evidently did not care to follow 
it, she decided, for he was eating them just like anybody 
would, if anything rather more clumsily than most 
people ; his fingers seemed to be all thumbs when it 
came to peeling their tails. 

“ Fiddling things ! ” he said abruptly, and pushed 
his plate away. Kissy wished she had the pluck to 
offer to prepare some for him. 

Jim’s eyes roved over the table. 

“ Have some prawns,” he cried, and without waiting 
for Kissy's answer picked up the dish and began to 
examine it. Seizing a monstrously fat fellow by its 
feelers he dangled it merrily. “ Here’s a whopper,” he 
laughed, “ see what long whiskers he has ; oh, and here’s 
his wife, don’t let’s part them ; ” he dropped both into 
Kissy’s plate and then helped himself. 

Kissy smiled gratefully, and knew that he was trying 
to set her at ease. 

Then a deft waiter cleared away the dishes, and 
another one set a green glass bowl in front of Kissy, a 
bowl filled with warm water on the surface of which 
floated a section of lemon. 

This was something that Kissy could not fathom 
unaided. She looked across at Jim with questioning 
appeal in her eyes, and the colour rose slowly to her 
cheeks. Jim smiled back reassuringly, and almost 
directly a second bowl stood in front of him, too. Kissy 
watched with close attention ; her head a little on one 
side, her eyes very grave. 

“ Beastly smelly things, shrimps,” he said, “ and 
sticky, too, though I don’t see why they should be.” 
Then the mystery of the finger-bowls was made 
clear. 

Again the thought of her mother flashed through 


186 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

Kissy’s brain. “ I wonder if they had these when she 

was a girl ? ” was her query. 

Again the feeling that she was causing an unjustifiable 
amount of manual work to other people was aroused 
when the waiter whipped away the napkin on the 
corner of which she had just dried her fingers and 
replaced it by a clean one. 

“ Oh,” she cried, deprecatingly horrified at such a 
prodigality of clean linen, “ it wasn’t really dirty ! ” 
And then again she blushed as she saw how uncon- 
cernedly Jim shook out the folds of the fresh napkin 
and carelessly threw it across his knees. 

The rest of the meal passed without further embarrass- 
ment for Kissy. She had the simple table-manners of 
a well-brought-up child, and though she found it queer 
to eat fish with what she had thought was a silver butter- 
knife, she managed the rest of the menu with unexpected 
self-possession. 

But she was astonished at the amount she was 
expected to eat, and told Jim so frankly. 

Equally frankly she confessed to a newly discovered 
penchant towards greediness when she accepted a 
second helping of a particularly delectable entremets 
of vanilla-flavoured ice served with a thick, warm 
chocolate sauce. 

“ I suppose,” she said, while coffee and a bewildering 
array of liqueur bottles were set out on a fresh cloth — 

“ another fresh cloth,” she had thought protestingly — 

“ I s’pose there are people who come to restaurants like 
this every day.” 

“ Rather,” said Jim. 

Kissy thought this over for a few seconds. 

“ Well,” she concluded, “ I dare say it’s very jolly 
for them, but they can’t possibly enjoy it every day as 
much as I have this once ! ” 

Kissy’s quiet conviction, and her air of absolute con- 


THE ADMIRABLE 137 

tentment, stirred and touched Jim infinitely more than 
he realized at the moment. 

As he sat in front of Kissy, his Corona — he had asked 
Kissy’s permission to smoke, a fact which contributed 
not a little to her feeling of absolute happiness — 
preciously poised between finger and thumb, he was 
only conscious of the complacent mood that comes of 
giving joy to others. 

Then as he thought over Kissy’s conclusion and the 
assumption it held that, for her, such pleasures could 
only happen “ this once,” he was filled with the unwise 
desire to assure her that they could be repeated — fre- 
quently, as frequently as she liked. 

Mentally he compared her frank enjoyment of what 
had been, after all, a very simple luncheon, to the 
brazen grasping of favours, ill-concealed by a mask of 
disdain, of the average theatrical woman and demi - 
mondainc. 

Kissy’s pleasure, the happy excitement of her eyes, 
and the shy smiles with which she had thanked him, 
were delightful. Jim marvelled that he had ever been 
such a fool as to submit to the matter-of-fact reception 
of his devotion and the blas£ indifference of other women 
with whom he had shared such meals. It would be 
quite delightful, he thought, to play fairy godfather to 
such a Cinderella. 

He was filled with a rush of altruistic emotions ; his 
intentions were honourably unselfish. 

He would pay the woman of that Undwelluponable 
Place to set Kissy free, he would pay for a course of 
commercial education, or else he would pay — what a 
lot can be done with money — the premium that would 
obtain her admittance to a first-class house of business. 
Once safely established as a self-respecting wage-earner 
in such conditions, there was no reason why she should 
not climb to the topmost summits of commercial success. 


188 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

People who made gowns and hats were great people in 
Paris, were not Monsieur Lewis and Madame Pa quin, 
for instance, “ decorated ” with the Legion of Honour ? 

He imagined Kissy suddenly grown a foot taller, and 
certainly more than a foot broader, presiding over 
elaborate showrooms in the rue de la Paix, or perhaps — 
he seriously weighed the respective merits of both sites — 
the Place Vendfime. He saw her, the day’s work finished, 
running out to a villa at Versailles in a neat little Renaud 
landaulette. It would be a comfortable, square-built 
house, with a perron and a double set of stone steps 
leading from the garden to the front door, and probably 
there would be a large coloured-glass ball on an orna- 
mental stand. 

Jim supposed vaguely that there would be a husband, 
probably an ex-head-cutter from some rival establish- 
ment, and — but no, no babies ! Jim couldn’t quite 
imagine the babies. 

He looked across the table through a cloud of smoke, 
and Kissy shrank back to her normal size, he saw her 
again as a very young creatine of flesh and blood. 

No, decidedly — it was impossible to imagine babies, 
she was only a child herself. 

“ Let’s go,” he said, abruptly standing up, “ we’ll 
have a look at the baraques , and then I’ll take you 
ho — , back ! ” 


VIII 

They strolled slowly up the right-hand side of the 
boulevards, as far as the Faubourg Poissonni£re. At 
first they talked a great deal with the frank and intimate 
curiosity that happens sometimes between strangers of 
opposite sex and class. Then, quite suddenly, they 
became silent. Outside the red-lit editorial offices of 
the Matin they stopped, went over to the other side of the 
st rt t l and began to walk back towards the Madeleine. 


THE ADMIRABLE 139 

As they crossed, Jim crooked a protective and guiding 
arm under Kissy’s elbow, and once safely on the other 
pavement he did not remove it. Instead of resenting 
this proximity Kissy found herself thrilling to it. She 
liked the warm, even pressure of his fingers and thumb 
as they curved upwards round her forearm ; she even 
leaned more heavily towards him than she need have 
done, to feel the upholding resistance of his palm and 
wrist ; she thought she could perceive, through the 
double thickness of her sleeves, the circular inflexibility 
of his glove buttons, and at the same instant she won- 
dered curiously who sewed on his buttons when they 
came off and who mended his socks. 

The boulevards were thronged. The usual Parisian 
New Year crowd loitered before the booths in the trying 
glare of the hissing acetylene lamps. 

Glib camelots , impudent-eyed Orientals, and fat French 
women, wrapped in a cocoon of shawls, sold toys, sweets, 
visiting-cards — printed-while-you-wait — and all descrip- 
tions of catch-penny devices for opening tins, slicing 
vegetables, cleaning silver, or uncorking bottles. A 
man who dispensed bottles of silver, bronze, and gilt 
paint for the “ artistic ” beautifying of the home did a 
great trade. He wore a floppy black cap and a velvet 
coat, and had the aloof weary air of the great artist 
who knows that he is incompris. There were stalls 
also where games of chance and of skill could be played, 
and where, according to your luck or your cleverness, 
you could hope to win blue eggcups or appallingly ill- 
balanced and flamboyant vases. 

Since her arrival in Paris a year ago Kissy had not 
been out in the streets after nightfall, and she felt all 
he more keenly the peculiar sensation of isolation that 
one feels in a crowd at night-time. Nothing was real 
to her in this passing world except the silent man against 
whom she leaned, and as she realized it she knew at 


140 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

the same moment that this reality was but a passing 
incident. 

He had told her that he was leaving Paris for an 
indefinite time within the next few days. 

To be perfectly exact it was after that statement the 
present silence had fallen. 

It was impossible for Jim not to have noticed the 
blank look which saddened Kissy’s eyes when he spoke, 
though Kissy herself was unconscious of it. 

And that involuntary look showed him the extent of 
the indiscretion of which he had been guilty. 

Common sense told him that he was making a moun- 
tain out of a molehill ; sentiment made him want to 
respond to Kissy’s unconscious appeal. 

But what could he do before leaving. His cabin was 
taken on a ship leaving Marseilles at the end of the 
week, and every moment of his time was booked till 
then. You couldn’t plan out a girl’s — a strange girl’s — 
future like that in a couple of days or so. Besides, how 
did he know whether she would even let him. Also, 
perhaps, on further acquaintance the girl herself might 
prove unmeritorious of these plans for her advance- 
ment. 

This suggestion sickened Jim, even as it flashed 
through his brain. “ Cant,” he murmured under his 
breath, “ damned cant ! ” 

After that, for a few fleeting seconds, came the thought 
of taking Kissy wdth him on his trip. 

The impracticability inherent to this did not strike 
him. He only thought of Kissy’s eyes and mouth smiling 
enchantingly in a little Japanese garden — why particu- 
larly Japanese garden he did not know unless perhaps 
because he could so well imagine Kissy playing with 
dolls. He also “ saw ” Kissy dressed in very white, 
virginal] y white, garments. White-antelope shoes just 
like his own, only infinitely tiny, trimmed with stampings 


THE ADMIRABLE 141 

and little round holes tied with neat laces, not those 
absurd great bows that some women affect. He thought 
it would be rather jolly to take her to his bootmaker. 

The frock would be made of that white soft stuff little 
children seem to wear, and the hat would be of fine white 
straw, very floppy and big. Then there would be doe- 
skin gloves — didn’t women call ’em suede ? — and white 
silk stockings. It would be ripping to take Kissy round 
to the shops and watch her eyes while he would urge 
her on to choose pretty things. 

How absurd those stupid old jokes were about hus- 
bands hating to pay their wives’ bills ! 

And then he would buy her furs. Dark furs that 
would make her grey eyes seem blue. A big sealskin 
coat with a collar to button up over her mouth and ears. 
How small her little white-gloved hands would look 
emerging from the deep wide cuffs of fur ! 

Then there would be jewels. Pity he was not richer. 
A little pearl necklet would suit her ; but it would have 
to be long enough to leave her slim stem of a neck free. 
No earrings. One perfect single pearl for the third 
finger of the right hand, or perhaps a diamond mounted 
on a thin circlet of platinum. No jingly bracelets to 
spoil the line of the arm : but there would have to be 
a gold-faced watch on a leather strap, just to wear in 
the mornings with her tweed tailor-made suit when she 
would go tramping over country roads with him, wear- 
ing a soft felt hat and stout, brown, double-soled boots. 

Funny that he had never dreamed like this about 
Alice. But then, of course, Alice had all those things 
already. Kissy had nothing. Poor, uncomplaining, 
grateful-for-nothing, little creature . . . how silent she 
was ! 

And then, waking from his daydream, Jim discovered 
that he was standing outside the house in the rue 
Macabre and that Kissy was speaking to him. 


142 


THE BROKEN LAUGH 

“ Are you coming in ? ” was what she said. Evidently 
she had rung the bell, for the door was swinging open. 

“ I — I’m afraid I haven’t time,” answered Jim, shirk- 
ing any prolongation of what he felt was becoming an 
impossible situation, and thinking belatedly of a dozen 
engagements and New Year calls he had skipped that 
afternoon. “No, I’ll leave you now, I think. Thanks 
aw’ fly for having come.” 

Kissy had already slipped into the inner gloom of the 
vestibule — she turned passionately : 

“ It’s me that’s got to thank you ! ” she cried, “ and 
I do from the bottom of my heart. I’ll never forget it. 
Good-bye .” 

Fear was shadowing her voice. She pushed the door, 
and it swung with slow finality in Jim’s face. He 
stepped forwards with awkward haste and spoke into 
the blackness of the ever-narrowing gap : 

“ Kissy,” he cried, “ Kissy — I’ll be coming back ! ” 

The door closed with a callous thud. 

He wondered if she had heard. 


PART II 


CHAPTER I 
The Inevitable 
I 

At the end of August, eight months after Crighton’s 
departure, Kissy sat at the open window of her attic 
bedroom, sewing. 

A blue telegraph form, pasted with slips of w r hite 
paper, was spread open on the window-ledge, its corners 
weighted by a pair of scissors and two reels of cotton 
from the attack of a chance breeze. 

For the twentieth time in half an hour Kissy dropped 
her sewing, leaned forwards, and read over the words 
intently. 

“ MISS GIRL 143 RUE MACABRE PARIS ARRIVING 
THIS EVENING HOPE YOU CAN DINE WITH ME 
— CRIGHTON.” 

With the air of taking a great resolution she swept 
scissors and cotton-reels aside, and picking up the mes- 
sage, scanned it just once more, held it for a moment 
with cradling lovingness over her heart, and then folding 
it carefully, hid it in the open neck of her blouse, from 
whence it slipped down and rested between her breasts. 

Then she took up her sewing and bowed her head 
resolutely over her work. Yet ever and again, as she 
took fresh cotton or paused to untangle a knot, she 
pressed her hand to her bosom, and thrilled delightedly 

143 


144 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

to feel the stiff texture of the paper against her 
skin. 

He was coming back. She would see him again. 
She would feel the strong greeting pressure of his hand. 

It was Kissy’ s deepest regret that, in order to hide the 
sudden tears which, she thought, were so ungrateful, 
she had been obliged to slam the door in his face without 
a parting handclasp. 

But she had heard and treasured, as only she could 
treasure, his promise to return, and for eight months she 
had lived with that thought paramount. 

All her dreams were centred on that assurance, and 
she made up her mind to leave nothing undone that she 
could possibly accomplish in order to become a little 
more worthy of his — she hesitated long over the word, 
and finally thought “ kindness ” ; and, as she did so, 
she knew the hypocrisy of it. At this time she added 
several little additions to her “ Pragod ” supplications. 
One was “ Pragod forgive me because I want to make 
him love me — and please make him ” ; and another, in 
which one could see that doubt had tormented her : 
“ Pragod take care of him always, even if he doesn't come 
back.” 

It was not that Kissy had suddenly discovered great 
belief in prayer, only she felt, as many feel, that after 
all it might be of some good. Also, she had to talk to 
some one ; some one who would not talk back and make 
disparaging remarks as Cora did. 

So night after night she knelt at her bedside with 
tense shoulders and white, clenched knuckles, and 
when she rose from her knees, her vision was blurred, 
so tightly had she closed her eyes. 

II 

Before leaving Paris, Crighton sent Kissy a case, a 
fairly large case, of books. During the famous luncheon 


THE INEVITABLE 145 

he had discovered that Kissy’s only pleasure and only 
recreation was reading, and that, necessarily, reading- 
matter was poor in quality and quantity in the House 
of the rue Macabre. Hysterically indecent French 
novels and mawkishly sentimental English romances 
formed the small library which was at Kissy’s disposal. 
Volumes unearthed in dusty corners of the boxroom and 
attic, and which had come there, heaven knows when 
or how. Tattered, evil-smelling bundles of yellowing 
pages marked with grease-spots, candle-drips, and circular 
stains that spoke of carelessly handled glasses. 

In the box Jim sent her there were novels by Wells, 
Arnold Bennett, John Galsworthy, W. B. Maxwell, 
Barrie, and Kipling, and a Continental edition of John 
Ruskin’s “ Sesame and Lilies.” 

It was after carefully reading several of the novels, 
and dipping diffidently into Ruskin, that Kissy dared 
to write her first letter to Jim, who had already written 
twice, the second time to demand an answer. She 
waited three weeks and then wtote. 

After that they exchanged letters at intervals. 

Kissy’s letters were chiefly concerned with her reading. 
“ I like Mr. Wells and Mr. Bennett,” she said, “ because 
they write about real people that one could really meet. 
It’s comforting to know that ordinary persons are in- 
teresting enough to be written into a book.” 

Another time she asked : “Is my spelling better, and 
do I choose my expressions more clearly ? Mr. Ruskin 
says one must learn the exact meanings of words, and 
never let a word escape that looks suspicious.” 

Once Jim asked Kissy to tell him more about herself 
and what she was doing. 

Obediently she answered : “ To-day I mended four- 
teen pairs of silk stockings, and invented a new way of 
sewing ribbon shoulder-straps so that they don’t tear. 
It’s shoulder-straps that wear out most. Madame says 


146 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

she’ll have to fine the ladies, and they say it’s not their 

fault. 

“ Madame was so pleased with this new way I’ve 
found out that she gave me some ferns that were getting 
too yellow for downstairs. They’re in my window now, 
and they look like a real conservatory.” 

Jim, who was sitting on a terrace overlooking a 
wonderful expanse of Canadian scenery when he read 
this, swore softly. He also felt that he was somehow 
a selfish oaf, which was sheer foolishness. 

He was an absurdly sentimental and quixotic young 
man. 

They were funny, stiff, stilted little letters these two 
people wrote each other ; beginning and ending with 
awkward abruptness. 

They were pen-tied, as country lovers strolling hand in 
hand and talking self-consciously of the weather are, for 
long intervals, tongue-tied while they think intimate 
thoughts about each other that they cannot put into 
words. 


Ill 

* 

Six strokes of a solemn church clock boomed across 
the house-tops. Kissy rose on the last stroke as a child, 
who has been kept in after school, rises from its bench 
when its punishment is ended. 

Her evening toilet was performed with much splashing 
of cold water and a prodigious amount of hair brushing. 
The pumice-stoning of her needle-pricked fingers also took 
an unconscionable time, and it was nearly seven before she 
stood in front of her tiny mirror and put on her hat. 

The material for the gown, white muslin, the yellowing 
Leghorn hat with its floppy brim and broad bow of black 
velvet ribbon, the white silk stockings and little old- 
fashioned bronze shoes, all came from the inexhaustible 
trunk that had once belonged to her mother. 


THE INEVITABLE 147 

As soon as she heard that Jim was in Canada, Kissy, 
secretly, had altered and adapted these clothes ; “in 
case,” she had thought, “ in case — ! ” 

Again the church clock struck. Kissy opened her 
door and went to the top of the stairs. Although it 
was still broad daylight, the lower part of the house was 
already shuttered and illuminated, it echoed with sub- 
dued and muffled noises. 

A ring at the outer door. Kissy rushed down, paused 
breathlessly, and hung over the banisters. Elise crossed 
the reception-hall and vanished to reappear in a few 
seconds with an envelope, which she carried into the 
sanctum Madame occupied to the left of the entrance 
stairs. 

Instinctively Kissy knew the letter was for her. Im- 
petuously she ran down the remaining stairs and made 
irruption in Madame’s room. 

The latter stood near her desk, a plump well-manicured 
thumb already under the dap of the envelope. 

“ That is to me ! ” said Kissy, “ give me that ! ” 
The interruption was so unexpected that Madame 
yielded meekly. After all she had already given Kissy 
permission to go out, and her attempt to open the letter 
was more a matter of habit than real curiosity. 

“ What does it say ? ” she demanded, however, as 
Kissy intently scanned the lines. 

“ He calls me to a restaurant at Ville d’Avray,” she 
answered, in French ; “ and he has sent an automobile 
to fetch me. It is attending below ! Oh, Madame, may 
I go, at once ? ” 

Madame hesitated, she had made up her mind to have 
a little talk with “ Monsieur Crighton ” before allowing 
Kissy out of her sight again. Her cynicism realized 
more clearly than Jim or Kissy the almost inevitable 
outcome of the affair ; and, knowing the domestic value 
of Kissy’s services in the house, she was not disposed 


148 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

to forgo them unless she received adequate compensa- 
tion. 

She pondered undecidedly, knowing that she had not 
the shadow of a claim on Kissy. On the contrary, it 
would be as well not to annoy the crazy type of an 
Englishman, who might prove more difficult to handle 
than the little one had been. 

So Madame gave voluble permission, wished her 
“ good amusement,” and reminded her to convey “ com- 
pliments of the most respectuous ” to “ Monsieur 
Crighton.” Upon which Kissy, with flushed cheeks 
and thudding heart, departed in all the glory of an 
automobile de maitre , while upstairs in the gilded and 
mirrored drawing-room the ladies pushed ajar the 
shutters, and craned over each other’s shoulders for a 
peep. 

IV 

It was nearly eight o’clock, and the orange after-glow 
of the golden August sunset had faded into mauve-grey 
summer dusk. 

Jim was sitting in one of the screened balconies that 
open only on one side, over to the still, far-stretching 
fishpond of Ville d’Avray. 

He was smoking in order to hold at bay the buzzy 
beasts that bite, since nothing ici-bas is quite perfect, 
and as the hands of his watch crept round to the moment 
when Kissy might possibly arrive, he stood up and began 
to pace up and down in the narrow space that was left 
between the table, spread for two, and the open side of 
the balcony. 

He had so much to tell her ; and he thought how 
beautifully she would listen. Not like other women, 
who ask you to tell them “ things,” and *hen look bored 
or indifferent. Yes, even those who had shown him 
plainly that they found him good to look upon* They 


THE INEVITABLE 149 

had all tried to make him believe that they were in- 
terested in his plans and ambitions, but not one had 
managed to deceive him. Always Jim compared their 
carefully studied expressions to his memory of Kissy’s 
intent eyes and the barely parted lips that seemed to 
be drinking in his words. He wondered what she would 
say when he told her that he was going into the timber 
trade. Would she know what that meant, or would 
she think he was going to become a sort of half-navvy, 
half-carpenter ; a shirt-sleeved worker brandishing a 
chopper and a saw ? 

He would now tell her also, and that first of all, what 
he intended to do for her. Not to earn her thanks, but 
because he wanted her to be quite sure, right from the 
start, that he desired her no harm. 

Jim had never forgotten the terrified look on Kissy’s 
face when he had seized her arm in the house of the 
rue Macabre. 

It was the same programme he had vaguely sketched 
to himself at the Chatham, but since he had been careful 
to assure himself of its feasibility. Now he could tell 
her to choose between apprenticeship to one of the very 
best places where they sold hats and frocks, or a course 
of commercial instiuction at one of those schools where 
they teach typewriting, shorthand, book-keeping and 
“ all that sort of thing.” There would be a decent 
pension de famille at Passy , where she could live. And 
sometimes, on Sunday, when he was in Paris, he would 
call for her and take her out to lunch, and afterwards 
to a matinie at the Odeon or the Opera-Comique. 

He had several times tried to mention this in his 
letters, but it looked so pompously priggish written down. 

Eight o’clock ! She surely should have been here at 
least fifteen minutes ago. Had the car broken down, 
had there been an accident ? He ought to have gone to 
fetch her himself— only the thought of again seeing her 


150 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

in that house sickened him. Perhaps the Woman 
had refused to let her come. The expression of Jim’s 
mouth, under the short moustache, would have dis- 
comforted Madame had she seen it. He discovered that 
it was a very warm evening, and began to mop up little 
beads of moisture that were pearling on his forehead 
and upper-lip. 

Cars innumerable swished along the highroad and 
snorted past Cabassud’s on their way to Versailles, and 
in the noise they made it was almost impossible to dis- 
tinguish those that stopped at the gates ; he could not 
see from his ivy-and-honeysuckle-screened cage. 

Suddenly, he paused and listened as he reached the 
farthest corner of the balcony, surely that was the rattle 
of the door-handle of the inner room ? 

He swung round and faced the open window. The 
dusk was thick within, but he could see the approaching 
glimmer of a white frock. Then, in an instant, she was 
framed in the threshold, and the intent eyes he re- 
membered so vividly were looking into his, questioning! y, 
a little fearfully. 

He tried to hold our his hand naturally and say, 

“ How do you do, Miss Girl ? ” but the words choked in 
his throat. 

“ Kissy ! ” he cried, opening his arms wide, and know- 
ing all at once that it was the only possible thing he 
could say or do. “ Kissy ! ” 

And Kissy went to him unhesitatingly, in radiant sub- 
mission. 


CHAPTER II 
Brussels 
I 

They were settled into a little house in Brussels by the 
beginning of October, after a wildly happy month of 
love-making and shopping. 

The two things are not incompatible when a man is as 
generous as Jim and the woman as grateful as Kissy. 

Before leaving Paris, Jim took Kissy to his boot- 
maker, just as he had imagined himself doing, and 
thoroughly enjoyed the almost terrified glance she threw 
at him when she heard him, after having competently 
discussed shapes and materials, carelessly order three 
pairs of shoes and two pairs of boots “ just to go on 
with.” 

As the proprietor of the shop himself bent over her 
arched instep with the tape-measure, Kissy signalled 
wildly over his back to Jim, “ Two are quite enough.” 
Jim grinned wickedly and remained silent. 

Afterwards, in the car, he silenced her protestations 
and explained that, for her, for himself, for all that 
belonged to them, the best was not yet good enough. 

When, in Brussels, they decided to look for a little 
furnished house, the business of buying house-linen and 
silver began. 

“ We’ll get cotton sheets and ‘ electro ’-plate,” said 
Kissy. 

“ I’ll be damned if we will,” said Jim. 

And so, when, they were showm specimen knives and 
forks and spoons, and told prices, and the horrified Kissy 
151 


152 


THE BROKEN LAUGH 

made great efforts at mental arithmetic to discover 
exactly the cost of the strictly minimum number of 
covers they would need, Jim again terrified her by 
ordering reckless dozens of everything, as well as a silver 
photograph frame, a dazzling cocktail-shaker, a silver 
and Sevres tete-a-tetS, a salad service, and a coffee-per- 
colator. 

Kissy’s restraining hand, tugging at the elbow of his 
coat-sleeve, had frantically signalled, “ No, no ! ” to all 
these things, and he had felt it a great concession that 
he did not take the silver-mounted claret-jug and that 
complicated affair for making lemon-squash. 

II 

“ What did you buy a photo-frame for ? ” Kissy asked, 
during lunch. 

“ For your photograph naturellement ! ” 

“ But I haven’t got a photograph of me ! ” 

“ I know, but ‘ me ’ is going to Boute’s to be taken ! ” 

“ Boute’s ? The King's photographer, where all the 
swells — I mean the nice people — go ? ” asked Kissy, 
properly incredulous. 

“ Umps ! ” 

Kissy pondered gravely. She also wondered which 
frock she would wear, or whether it would be “ just a 
head with a bit of chiffon round your shoulders ” picture. 
Then again she questioned. 

“ But why do you want a photograph of me since we 
are always together ? ” 

“ A man always has the picture of his dearest dear on 
his writing-table,” was the answer. 

And Kissy, who had not yet quite become used to the 
delight of being somebody’s “ dearest dear,” wriggled 
her shoulders with pleasure and was silent. 


BRUSSELS 


153 


III 

The house-linen also was a matter of anguish for Kissy. 
Jim thought in dozens where she could only count up 
to twelve. 

But she loved the things he made her choose. Sheer 
linen pillow-slips and sheets, fine and soft as handker- 
chiefs, with hemstitching top and bottom. (The italics 
are Kissy ’s.) Bath-towels as big as blankets, face- 
towels as soft as silk. Finest damask tablecloths and 
finger-napkins. Dishcloths, with which dishes would 
surely be dried like magic. Deliciously embroidered 
and drawn-thread-worked table-centres, doilies, and 
little lace-trimmed mats. 

Kissy again struggled between dismay at his prodi- 
gality and natural feminine elation and delight ; then 
the final blow fell. 

One day, when they were in one of the antiquity shops 
of the rue Royale buying an unnecessary but charming 
bibelot that had caught Jim’s eye as they passed the 
window, he remarked a Royal Doulton jlamte vase on an 
Hager e in the corner. 

“ It’s just the fellow of one that I have in Paris,” he 
told Kissy. 

“ In Paris ? ” she asked wonderingly. 

“ Yes, but I don’t remember whether it’s with my 
things from the flat or with the mater’s things. I had 
all the furniture sent to the garde-meubles , and there are 
half a dozen crates of do-dabs (that was a favourite word 
of Jim’s, and covered a multitude of meanings) and linen. 
Of course, the silver is at the Credit Lyonnais.” 

“ Then,” said Kissy incredulously, 44 all these things 
we’ve been buying, that have cost such lots and lots, 
do you mean that you’ve got them already once, in 
Paris ? ” 

“ My darling,” he pleaded in meek justification, 44 it 


154 


THE BROKEN LAUGH 

would have taken ages to sort out what we need and have 
the things sent over here I You don’t know how slow 
petite vitesse is in this country, and I am in rather a 
hurry to get into our own little home. Are not you ? 
Think, I’ve been living in hotels now for nearly a year, 
and I’m sick of them ! ” 

Kissy pretended to believe, but her heart was heavy 
for the first time since she had felt Jim’s arms close 
round her in the ivy-screened balcony at Cabassud’s. 

“ It’s because They were his Mother’s Things,” she 
thought sadly, and in capitals, “ and I am not Worthy ! ” 

As a matter of fact, no thought was farther from Jim’s 
mind than this. 

The reason he gave was the real one. Whenever Jim 
wanted a thing he was still young enough, and spoilt 
enough, to want it at once. 

He was in a hurry for domesticity with Kissy. 

IV 

The evening before they were to leave their hotel and 
move into the little house ‘ e up-town,” Jim faced Kissy 
with both hands behind his back. 

“ Guess which,” he asked, and laughed as Kissy, true 
to her principles, began by saying : 

“ Oh, Jimmy, you didn't ought to,” and then let her 
eyes and mouth smile adorably as she finished, “ but it’s 
sure to be lovely all the same.” 

He hung over her shoulder as she unfolded the tissue 
paper and opened the neat little jeweller’s-box. 

A narrow gold circlet was embedded in the white 
velvet. Kissy ’s fingers trembled, so that she fumbled. 

“ Let me ,” said Jim, “ and see, do you like what’s 
engraved inside ? ” 

The girl read : “ Kissy-Jim. August 1918.” 

She looked up at Jim then back at the ring again, 
and the man, as he slipped the narrow ring on the fourth 


BRUSSELS 155 

finger of her left hand, saw that her lower-lip was quiver- 
ing. 

He threw his arms round her and drew her close, 
tightening his embrace as if, physically, he would stifle 
the sudden feeling of discomfort that stirred him. 

“ Darling, it’s just as good, really,” he whispered 
shamefacedly. 

Loyally Kissy responded to the appeal she thought 
she perceived. 

“ Of course it is,” she answered stoutly. 

But in her heart she knew that it was not. 

V 

The little house in the Avenue Lepetit seemed to have 
been built on purpose for Jim and Kissy. 

It was a slim, two-storied house with a couple of 
decent-sized rooms on each floor ; a narrow bathroom 
that was merely a tiled portion of the passage outside 
the bed and dressing-rooms, and an immense red-flagged 
kitchen, bright with labour-exacting brasses. 

The furniture was simple and quite good. Old- 
fashioned perhaps, and a little heterogeneous. But it 
was an old-fashionedness that bordered on farmhouse 
antiquity, and the oaken frames of the rush-bottomed 
dining-smoking-drawing-room chairs were mellow in tone 
and polished with age. 

The two ground-floor rooms were divided by triple 
folding-doors, but these had been removed and the two 
rooms were as one, with the difference that the partition 
wall in which the doors had been set now afforded four 
very comfortable draughtless angles, and in the shelter 
of one of these Kis'w eventually made her niche, with 
her favourite books in a little portable bookcase, her 
work-table and cosy chair. 

It was the comer nearest the stove. One of those 
cylindrical, tubby, black Belgian stoves that grow red- 


156 


THE BROKEN LAUGH 

hot so quickly and purr comfortably in cold weather, 
and which, when not in use, are discreetly hidden in the 
wall behind elaborately wrought doors of brass or 
polished steel or simply black-leaded iron. 

To disguise the traces of the vanished folding-doors 
without incurring the landlord’s wrath, a tall grandfather- 
clock was ingeniously disposed on one side and a narrow 
oak-framed mirror on the other, that reflected the old 
clock with its carved door and vividly painted dial. 

A broad, deep, glass-fronted mahogany bookcase 
filled with books blocked in the whole space of the wall 
to the left of the window ; it contained a varied selection 
of French authors, from a complete set of calf-bound 
Corneille tragedies to Colette Willy and Duvemois in 
the ninety-five centime illustrated (ah combien !) edition. 
In the opposite corner stood the grand piano. 

Books and a Steinway grand in a furnished house 1 
And yet it is said that the age of miracles is past. 

Upstairs the dressing-room was bare and white, the 
bedroom vieux-rose and mahogany. 

On the walls hung coloured and daintily audacious 
cartoons from the Vie Parisienne in simple mahogany 
frames, an inevitable reproduction of one of the Chabas 
successes, a couple of portraits of somebody’s grand- 
parents, and a passe-partout filled with picture post cards 
of Paris, Saint -Malo, and the Mont.-St.-Michel — some- 
body’s honeymoon trip — and, finally, a Monna Lisa , 
that had the effect of making Kissy intensely uncom- 
fortable every time she caught “ its ” eye. 

“ Horrid cat,” was Kissy’s resentful comment, “ she’s 
always sneering at me.” 

“ Sling her out of the window,” Jim advised airily. 
So Kissy put her in the attic. 

Kissy liked the attic. Between the sloping rafters the 
dark rough underside of the red-tiled roof was visible, 
and daylight was admitted through a small square 


BRUSSELS 157 

window that could be pushed open by means of an iron 
bar, and which, in closing, shut, down like a lid. 

By clambering to the top of two trunks surmounted 
by a stool, and pushing up the window till it tilted back 
on its hinges and leaned entirely against the slant of 
the roof, Kissy could get her head and shoulders above 
the aperture and enjoy a chimney-pot view of the city. 
You could see all over Uccle, which is the St. John’s 
Wood of Brussels, and Ixelles, which is its Bayswater, 

VI 

Now there is one thing that I am keeping in the margin 
of my thoughts, even as a child keeps a delectable bonne 
bouche on the edge of its plate till the last moment, and 
this one thing is : the terrace. 

Perhaps it would be more exact to say three things : 
the view, the garden, and the terrace. But, after all, 
had the view been unsightly and the garden inexistent, 
there probably would have been no terrace at all, or at 
any rate it would not have been worth while keeping 
its delightfulness for the last. 

It is wisest to begin by making the single disparaging 
remark that belongs to it. It was only about fifty inches 
wide, and certainly not more than three yards lon^ ; 
also, the stairs which led from it down to the garden 
were narrow and built of iron. 

But for the rest ! What enchanting possibilities were 
glimpsed when, opening the wide French-window in the 
smoking-sitting-room, the caretaker ushered Kissy and 
Jim out on to the little stone ledge. 

First there was the garden, the merest strip of a town 
garden, but vivid with flowers, and its whitewashed 
walls hidden under the flaming copper tones of an 
ubiquitous Virginia creeper. Then, after another garden 
belonging to a picturesque house that was partially 
screened by some copper-beeches and a weeping-willow, 


158 


THE BROKEN LAUGH 

loomed the wonderful mass of trees, and trees, and ever 
more trees ; the billowy verdancy of the far-stretching 
Bois de la Cambre. 

Jutting walls as high as the first floor screened the 
terrace from the curiosity — which might have been 
reciprocal — of the immediate neighbours on either side. 
On these walls, also, the creeper clambered and dropped 
trailing garlands and streamers of orange and red ; and, 
from overhead, a tent-like awning of cream canvas, 
broadly striped with yellow, could be unfurled by means 
of a rustily unmelodious but efficacious crank. 

Under this awning, on the mosaic floor of the terrace, 
stood two comfortably worn basket-chairs and a solidly 
built garden-table. 

Jim and Kissy exchanged eloquent glances : 

“ Breakfast ! ” said Kissy. 

“ Dinner ! ” answered Jim. 

“ While the weather lasts, we’ll live out here,” they 
cried together. 

And the meteorological powers that autumn tolerantly 
accepted their rash challenge. 


CHAPTER III 
The Little House 
I 

The October of that year of grace 1913 was a glorious 
month in Brussels, and although, because of the melan- 
choly closing-in of the days, dinners on the terrace had 
to be regretfully postponed to “ next spring,” breakfasts 
were taken there daily till the weather broke. These 
breakfasts afforded moments of tender joy to Kissy. 

To sit in front of Jim and watch him demolish rolls — 
called “ pistolets ” — and coffee and boiled eggs on the 
opposite side of the little table spread with its gaily 
flowered napery and dainty silver, was one of the most 
blissful moments of Kissy’s life in the Little House. 

The early sun just peeping over the mellowing trees of 
the vast w r ood that seemed, so entirely were the dividing 
walls of the garden hidden under the creeper, to belong 
to them, shone strongly enough already to necessitate 
the lowering of the awning, yet there was a vivifying 
cold tang to the air — “ the bottom of the air was fresh,” 
as they say in French — that made one glad of a sweater 
coat and the warm blaze of the sun on the canvas over- 
head. 

The intimacy of this meal seemed more significant than 
all else, and Kissy, secretly always a little amazed at 
the incredible fact of all that had happened since the 
passionate evening at Cabassud’s, marvelled at Jim’s 
air of quiet domesticity as he scanned his letters or 
mumbled extracts from the morning paper. 

It was a meal at which Jim, who was always in danger 
159 


160 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

of being late at the office, was always unapologetically 
bad-mannered. 

But the calm serenity with which he committed in- 
cessant violations of the laws of the table, invested them 
with what Kiss^ mentally called “ alrightness.” 

Kissy, who was an unconscious impressionist, also 
noted and enjoyed the contrast afforded by the well- 
groomed man fresh from razor and bath, and the rough- 
headed boy who had lain by her side in the careless 
abandonment of healthy sleep that wakes to confiding 
caresses and thence drowses again, peacefully, to 
oblivion. 

It seemed wonderful to her that, when she looked at 
his neck, encased in correct linen, she should know the 
bare lines of the muscular throat beneath. 

“ You seem so mine” she said to him once, “ when I 
watch you dressing.” 

Breakfast, too, was the meal during which Kissy felt 
more respectable than at any other time. And she so 
loved to feel that. 

Dinner, at night, was a more solemn meal. The little 
fifteen-year-old “ help,” daughter of the cook-of-all- 
work, who at such moments was grandly dubbed “ the 
parlour-maid,” waited at table when the} dined at home, 
but more often than not they drove “ down-town ” to 
the Filet de Sole, the Helder, or half a dozen other of the 
tiny world-famous restaurants of Brussels dear to the 
gourmet — and the purse ; or, on great occasions, the 
Chapon Fin, which is, par excellence , the Belgian Voisin. 

Dinner, therefore, was a delightful meal, since every- 
thing shared with Jim was delightful ; but, nevertheless, 
it had not the intimately domestic quality, so fascinating 
to Kissy, of breakfast. 

She felt more self-confident in the fresh neatness of a 
simple blouse and the tweed skirt of a morning-suit 
than in semi-evening, restaurant creations over which 


THE LITTLE HOUSE 161 

the Continental couturier allows himself full scope for 
originality. 

She enjoyed every moment of the little ceremonial of 
pouring coffee, and savoured in advance the exquisite 
moment when, hat in hand, and a flat leather satchel of 
papers under his arm, Jim would tilt up her chin for the 
farewell kiss taken with an air of carelessness and splendid 
authority that would not have deceived the most in- 
different stranger. 

At that moment, when she waved to him from the 
window, before going down to the kitchen to see the 
cook and then upstairs to help little Fina — at this hour 
housemaid — make the bed, Kissy felt, as she phrased it, 
“ as good as married.” 

Another matutinal joy was when a marketing pretext 
allowed her to say carelessly to Jim — again carelessness 
that deceived nobody, not even Jim or herself — “ Can 
you wait for me two minutes ? I’ll come as far as the 
Porte Louise on the tram with you ! ” And Jim would 
always answer, with the air of being a little annoyed 
at the delay — which yet, again, was very poor pretence : 
“ Buck up, then, I must be at the office by nine ! ” 

And then, at the Porte Louise, before Kissy jumped 
off the tram, they would give each other, with great 
semblance of unconcern, an off-hand handclasp, and 
Jim always seemed to find it an awful bore to have to 
raise his hat. With what a deliciously proprietary air, 
and with what a cold little voice did Kissy always turn 
her head on the last step and say, distinctly : 

“ Now, don't be late for lunch ! ” 

And to be sure that the fellow-travellers on the plat- 
form understood, she would say it all over again in 
French, with an enchanting English accent : “ Ne 

soyez pars en retar ’ poor dayjeunay ! ” 

“ Old married people like us,” was their attitude to 
the world at large — a world which, they were sure of 


162 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

this, had its eyes fixed on them — while secretly they knew 
in their hearts that they were thrilling towards each 
other to the uttermost capacity of their beings. 

II 

They were, of course, both too human and too young 
to sail eternally through only the smooth waters of 
domestic bliss. 

Jim’s careless bachelor habits and prodigality were a 
perpetual source of perplexities and small worries to 
Kissy, while Kissy’s tendency to skimp and count irked 
Jim’s sense of the fitness of things and what was due 
to persons of their position. He was not a bit priggish, 
really, but one never quite outgrows being an only son 
with a name. 

They bickered and squabbled, Kissy wept and Jim 
sulked — never for long. Doors even were slammed ; 
until, one day, after an unusually loud slam (it was the 
front door, too, that time) Jim, who had been striding 
down the street, suddenly turned, rushed back, let him- 
self into the house with his latchkey, and ran upstairs 
to tell Kissy that they were “ both silly idiots, and they 
would never, never, never quarrel again.” 

The stair-carpets were thick, and Kissy, who had cried 
herself wellnigh deaf, did not hear him enter the room, 
and so Jim assisted for one incredulous instant at the 
spectacle of a very youthful creature trying to suppress 
the loud sobs that still shook her, in order to concentrate 
all her attention on the task of opening her veins with a 
pair of very frail embroidery scissors. 

“ You — you — c-called me a d-d-dam’d lit-ittle n-nuis- 
ance,” she sobbed on his shoulder a moment later, “ and 
if the d-dam’d si-scissors hadn’t been s-so b-blunt I’d 
h-have b-bled to death already, and you’d have b-been 
rid of me ! I w-would ! ” 

“ Don’t talk damnable nonsense,” said Jim roughly, 


163 


THE LITTLE HOUSE 

all the more roughly because he was battling with a 
horrid feeling of sickness caused by the look of that 
jagged scratch on Kissy’s wrist. 

For a long while Kissy lay passively in Jim’s arms, her 
sobs had almost stopped, and she was listening intently 
to the deep throbs of the heart under the coat against 
which her head was pressed. An overwhelming sensa- 
tion of shame flooded her, with which she struggled for a 
little while. 

It is always so difficult to express contrition in mere 
words. There should be some conventional sign, some 
expressive method of mutely conveying one’s feelings. 
A dozen times she drew breath for the sentence and 
opened her mouth, a dozen times it died on her lips. 
Till at last a belated sob seemed to shake the words 
from her : 

“I’m sorry” she whispered contritely. 

“ It’s so silly of us,” he answered, with an accompany- 
ing and forgiving hug. 

Upon which they threshed out — just so far as two 
members of the opposite sex can thresh out things — 
various matters that needed much fine adjustment. 

Ill 

With the spring came long walks in the wonderful 
Forest of Soignes which, since a short cut through the 
wood, by the riding-path that twists to the right of the 
lake, took them there in fifteen minutes, was practically 
at their door. 

London has its unequalled parks, they are but parks ; 
Paris its ornamental but embryonic Bois de Boulogne ; 
Rome its Villa Borghese, Berlin its Tiergarten, Chris- 
tiania its Holmenkollen, Stockholm its Djurgarden, and 
all these pleasant places are in their several ways almost 
unsurpassably perfect. Yet Brussels surpasses them 
with its Forest of Soignes, which stretches, for succeeding 


164 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

enchanting miles, almost to Waterloo in the south and 
to the delightful park of Tervueren in the east. 

It is so vast, and its enchanting nooks so numerous, 
that even on the most beautiful spring Sunday you can 
find solitude therein, despite the invading town’s-people 
who, with paper parcels of food, crowd to its outskirts, 
gape at the majesty of its trees, and, fearful of leaving 
the broader, beaten paths, “ take walks ” to given 
destinations — to the caviijes of Boitsfort or Woluwe, 
where the coffee is strong and the beer is fresh, and where 
cascading mechanical organs make the world hideous 
with their strident rendering of popular airs— ignoring 
a hundred hidden glades where dappled deer lie drowsing 
or browsing under the branches in the warmth of filtered 
sunshine, or where, between the pine-trees, bunnies 
lollop friskily on the brown -carpeted earth at dusk and 
in the early morning. 

Kissy and Jim learned to love rising when the first 
pink flush of dawn shone through the uncurtained 
windows of their room, which faced the wood, and six 
o’clock would find them, emptily hungry, striding to- 
wards their goal, breakfast at the Chateau de Groenen- 
dael, six miles away, where they would arrive to find 
waiters and servants busy with mop and broom in the 
restaurant. 

Breakfast would be spread for them under a tree in 
the garden. An English breakfast in due reward for 
such a walk. Delicious brown eggs, which sometimes 
they fetched themselves, warm from the nest. Fresh 
creamy milk from the little Bretonne cows in the farm 
near by, bread of the chateau’s own baking, ham of the 
chateau’s own curing, and honey fragrant with an 
elusive scent of flowers. 

After breakfast came the slower homeward walk 
towards the nearest boundary of the Forest, some three 
or four miles away, where Jim would board a city-bound 


THE LITTLE HOUSE 165 

tram : “ I wonder whether it’s because I’ve eaten too 
much or because I hate leaving you, that we crawl so? ” 
Jim one day asked ; “ I think” he continued, “ it’s 

those two extra slices of new bread and butter and 
jambon d'Ardenne .” 

Thereupon Kissy tried to pummel him, which resulted 
in demonstrations of a jiu-jitsuical nature, after which 
they had to pick innumerable pine-needles out of their 
clothes and Kissv*s hair, and Jim very nearly missed 
the nine-o’clock tram at the Petite Espinette. 

He was always “ nearly missing ” that nine-o’clock 
tram I 

After Jim had departed citywards, Kissy would turn 
back into the wood again to stroll home on foot over 
the anemone-carpeted earth. She loved the pale delicate 
flowers, and whenever she met — and she met them most 
frequently on Monday mornings — dead bunches that 
had wilted in children’s warm little hands and had been 
carelessly thrown away, she always gathered them up, 
and made them soft graves of damp green moss, and 
told them not to be sad because, of a surety, their souls 
would blossom again in pink-and-white loveliness next 
spring. 

Sometimes Kissy met labourers and woodcutters, who 
touched their caps with a muttered salutation. She 
enjoyed nodding back and smiling. “ It’s like being 
one of the grand ladies in Mr. Benson’s novels,” she told 
Jim. “ I feel just as if I was the Lady So-and-So of the 
Manor House, and they are my tenants, and I always 
want to call them ‘ you dear things,’ and tell them to 
sleep with their windows open I ” 

“ Which,” said Jim, “ would be a beastly interfering 
thing to do ! ” 

“ Oh, but that’s the sort of thing grand English people 
do say to their tenants, isn’t it ? ” asked Kissy, horridly 
shocked at Jim’s criticism. 


160 


THE BROKEN LAUGH 

“ Possibly,” admitted Jim, “ but because they are 
what you call 4 grand ’ doesn’t make it any the less im- 
pertinent, you know ! ” 

To which Kissy replied — and was it a strain of the 
middle-class subservience she had inherited from her 
mother, or an autocratic conviction that serfdom was 
right and necessary that had been transmitted from her 
father ? — “ I think common people ought to be told 
what’s good for them and made to do it.” 

“ Well, l think the same thing applies to you,” laughed 
Jim. “You read too many novels, my dear, and I’ll 
have to tell Charlotter to light the fires with some of 
those ‘ sixpenny’s ’ I see littered about the house.” 

Then a passing curiosity urged him to ask : “ How 
would you like to be My Lady ? ” 

“Not at all,” answered Kissy promptly, “ at least not 
all of a sudden as I am now, I shouldn’t know what to 
do. I’d be feeling all the time like I did when you made 
me go to Boute’s to be photographed. My face went 
all stiff, and my arms seemed to stick out all over the 
place. It was horrid. Of course, if you’re born to it, 
I s’pose it’s different.” 

“ Then it’s just as well that my uncle has two sons 
to inherit the title.” 

“ Is your uncle a lord ? ” asked Kissy, with awe. 
The very idea seemed terrifying to her, as if it made 
what she subconsciously called the “ difference ” be- 
tween herself and Jim immeasurably greater. 

Jim nodded. “ Yes,” he said, “ and a millionary one 
to boot ! London property, places all over the country, 
and all the rest of it ! Just think of Kissy wearing all 
the family jewels, and a diamond do-dab a foot high 
stuck up in front of her top-knot ! ” 

Jim was almost serious, but Kissy thought he was 
teasing, and because she was a little hurt, sne wanted to 
have the last word. 


167 


THE LITTLE HOUSE 

“ Silly, 5 * she said, “ we’re not married.” 

Jim flushed. “ We might be,” he said gravely, almost 
to himself. The idea had taken expression suddenly ; 
it was not so impossible an idea after all ! “ We might 

be!” 

Kissy bounded. “ Ah, don’t ! ” she said with simple 
dignity ; and her voice made one think of a mother 
chiding the little boy who has laughed aloud in church. 

IV 

Jim’s partner, Degrief, was a middle-aged “ Brus- 
selter ” who had started life, after a brilliant career in 
the schools, as a mining engineer. Unfortunately, he 
was cursed with an extremely susceptible nature that 
enabled him to see slights and offences where none were 
intended, and at the age of twenty-seven, after having 
thrown over post after post in Belgium, China, Bulgaria, 
and Spain, he found himself at a loose end in Brussels, 
saddled with the reputation of being a man “ one finds 
it’s impossible to work with,” which is the most damn- 
able thing that a man of no fortune can have said about 
him. 

With the happy optimism of youth, and on the 
strength of his first appointment to the Saiping collieries 
in China, he had dared to marry the only daughter of 
some old friends of his parents. 

It was one of those “ they-played-together-as-children ” 
marriages ! 

Both of these middle-class families lived on pensions 
that had been earned in minor posts as servants of the 
State, and neither of the young people had a cent or 
“ expectations ” with which to bless themselves, beyond 
Degrief’s salary. 

From the very start it was a hard struggle, and Jeanne 
Degrief, who proved to be one of the most courageous 
and intelligent of women, speedily came to realize that 


168 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

her husband was not, and never would be, popular with 
his chiefs or his fellow-workers. 

He had a penchant for sweeping reforms, and was 
incapable of closing lenient eyes to the petty pilferings 
of the Chinese coolies, and certain “ deals ” not quite 
on the right side of honesty in which some of his con- 
freres took part so openly that it was hard to realize 
that the results of these deals were not legitimate 
“ perks.” 

It would have been just as well, of course, if all these 
“ leakings ” could have been stopped, and had Degrief 
exercised patience, and an elementary amount of diplo- 
macy, no doubt he would have achieved that praise- 
worthy result. However, instead of moving with sub- 
tility and caution, he went, roaring with virtuous in- 
dignation, 1 6 the highest authority he could reach, 
whom he bombarded with dry facts about the mis- 
management of mines in my district ; and concluded 
by rather peremptorily pointing out to this authority 
his duty, and the best and most immediate way of 
accomplishing it. 

Now, this authority was a man of millions, and De- 
grief found^ him in an after-lunch mood — millions in this 
case not having been amassed at the expense of digestive 
organs. For awhile he listened patiently, then he began 
to find that this wild-haired young Belgee was spoiling 
the flavour of his cigar. Besides, no man likes to be 
told his Duty to Mankind in capitals when the weather 
is hot. Also, when a man has so many millions that, 
practically, they automatically take care of themselves, 
what does he care if a few hundred sweating coolies steal 
the value of a few thousand dollars a year, and a few 
homesick white men try to feather their nest in a not 
strictly legitimate manner. 

While Degrief was bringing his peroration to a climax, 
the authority, who was no longer young and fond of 


169 


THE LITTLE HOUSE 

changes, thought wearily of the innumerable orders he 
would have to give, and of the general upheaval the 
necessary reforms would entail ; and so, when the young 
man stood up and, slapping for the last time his em- 
phatic palm on the voluminous dossier spread out on the 
table, made his bow and departed, concluding with the 
irritating statement that : “ having done what he con- 
sidered to be his Duty he now left the matter in the 
good hands of monsieur, the administrator -general,’ * 
the authority lay back in his cane chair, gently mopped 
his brow, and sighed. 

V 

Along the blinding white road, heedless of the sun’s 
glare, Degrief, on the back of a small, shaggy-haired 
pony, trotted home to his wife and baby — there was 
already a baby — his imagination vivid with daydreams. 
He had no doubts whatever that due reward would 
follow his shining example of honesty, for, of course, 
he had made it clear in the dossier that he, too, had he 
chosen, might have done as others do at the company’s 
expense. 

It is only fair to add that he was in earnest, and so 
painfully honest as to verge on the pharisaical. 

In the cool veranda the authority dozed, to awake 
later, refreshed and benignant. A slight breeze stirred 
the papers on the table, and a loose sheet of typewriting 
fluttered to the ground, across the floor, and down the 
steps to the compound. 

The authority’s youngest son was there engaged, 
with the help of two flat-faced slit-eyed companions, 
the offsprings of the authority’s Chinese cook, in making 
a kite. It was a gorgeous kite, nearly as tall as the 
youngster himself, and nothing remained to be done 
except the tail. Paper, unfortunately, was giving out, 
and after winding the string round the last two strips 


170 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

in their possession, the children looked for more. The 
sheet of writing from the dossier fluttered near, and the 
authority smiled as he saw with what eager fingers they 
tore it to convenient sizes. It was quickly exhausted, 
and the boy looked up again ; spying the table, he 
bounded up the steps and pointed with eager fore- 
finger. 

“ Petit pere , may I ? ” he inquired, in the shrill voice 
of the excited child who can admit no obstacle to his 
desires. 

The authority nodded, and smiled again as he watched 
the onslaught. As they tore the neatly written pages 
into strips, he wondered vaguely if the young man had 
brought the typewriter out from Id-bas , or whether he 
had hired it in Shang-hi. 

Then he went indoors to discuss the confection of a 
new dish with the cook. 

VI 

When Degrief found that nothing came of his sub- 
mitted reform, and that the authority was no longer 
approachable, except through the usual channels (the 
guardians of which channels had their niche in the kite- 
tail* dossier , by the way), he became bitter, and when a 
sensitive, short-tempered man becomes bitter, the end 
is very near. 

Six months after the day on which the kite made its 
first ascension, the Degrief family sailed for Europe, and 
Degrief filed for reference the first of his many hard-luck 
stories. 

The trouble was that they were bona-fide stories. 
Hard luck dogged him persistently. He was always 
within an ace of the success which, through no apparent 
fault of his own, always eluded him. 

His was a case of misapplied personality. He would 
have made a wonderful millionaire, a bit of a crank, no 


THE LITTLE HOUSE 171 

doubt, but then most millionaires cannot avoid being 
that. 

When Degrief met Jim in Canada, where he had ar- 
rived on a hurried business trip, he had been acting for 
the last two years as general manager for the Van Donck 
Brothers, timber merchants, of Brussels and Antwerp. 
It was a very old firm, with a sound reputation for 
scrupulously honest, but, on the other hand, utterly 
unenterprising dealings. One of the old brothers was a 
bachelor, the other married, but childless, and it was an 
open secret that sooner or L.cer the firm would be on the 
market. Degrief knew this, and as he was on excellent 
terms with the old gentlemen, he felt confident that if 
only he could beg, borrow or . . . obtain the necessary 
capital in any other way, they would certainly give him 
the preference over outside bidders. Having struck up 
an acquaintance with Jim, he almost immediately con- 
fided to him his life-history, showed him the portraits of 
his wife and children, spoke intelligently of his travels 
and mining experiences, and attractively discussed the 
allurements, possibilities, and wide interests of the 
timber trade. 

When the cable came recalling Degrief to Europe, 
because the sudden death of the unmarried brother 
decided the elder man to wind up his affairs and retire 
from business as soon as possible, it was natural that 
Degrief should tell Jim of this latest development, and 
curse his own ill-luck and want of capital to “ snap up 
the finest, steadiest affair that ever went begging for a 
morsel of bread ! ” 

Within three hours of the receipt of the cable from 
Europe, Jim and Degrief were deep in figures and plans, 
and next morning Degrief followed his cable of con- 
dolences with another message containing a tentative 
proposition, which was immediately accepted on prin- 
ciple. 


172 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

Then Degrief returned to Brussels empowered by Jim 
to act for him under certain conditions, which conditions 
were fulfilled without any difficulty, old Mr. Van Donck 
having but one desire, and that to be rid of the business 
which for forty-five years he had carried on in his 
brother’s company. 

The business changed hands, and although the time- 
honoured name remained up on the fa9ades and on the 
old-fashioned notepaper, a small and discreet Crighton 
& Degrief, successeurs, was added underneath, and Jim 
made his quiet debut in commercialism with Degrief 
as his experienced partner, lieutenant, and right-hand. 

VII 

From the beginning the new association prospered. 
Old customers remained faithful, and very speedily 
Jim’s attractive personality made new friends for the 
firm and brought new orders. He chose, also, to use 
certain neglected diplomatic relations to bring him in 
touch with Government officials, who were pleased to 
find themselves dealing with a gentleman whose word 
was better than a dozen long-winded contracts. Several 
important deals were passed, and Degrief began to for- 
get that he was a socialist. Also, to Jim’s relief, he 
improved the brand of his cigars. 

Very quickly, of course, Jim discovered Degrief’s 
limitations, and learned to avoid argument with him as 
one avoids everything that is odious. More and more 
he took Degrief’s work on his shoulders, acting as buffer 
between him and possible buyers, the workmen, and 
foreign agents ; overseeing the correspondence — to 
which, as head partner, he reserved the right of signature 
— and eliminating therefrom the abrupt ultimatums 
that would so often have wrecked further negotiations. 

In reality, Jim ended by consulting Degrief only on 
such technical details as he had not yet mastered, and 


THE LITTLE HOUSE 173 

day by day the Belgian engineer became less and less 
active in the concern. He continued to handle a few 
meek customers who were used to him, and bombarded 
Jim with advice which Jim did or did not take. But, 
by degrees, he curtailed his working time to a great deal 
less than the “eight-hour day,” and Jim, who quickly 
realized that, young as he still was, the man had ex- 
hausted all his power for serious and intelligent work, 
was glad whenever he sent office-boy excuses, and did 
not turn up at the office or in the “ yard.” Degrief could 
follow a routine, but he was incapable of initiative. 
Unconsciously he shirked responsibility, and when he 
exerted himself, it was generally over an unimportant 
side-issue. 

And now that he was no longer obliged to follow a 
routine in order to earn his daily bread, he unblushingly 
slacked. 

So much so, that even Kissy noticed how Jim was 
bearing all the burden of the business on his shoulders. 

“ Is Mr. Degrief what they call a sleeping partner ? ” 
she inquired, with innocent good-faith, and was indignant 
at Jim’s shout of laughter. 

“ I made rather a mistake over the fellow,” Jim con- 
fessed to Kissy a little later, “ though he’s a good enough 
sort outside of the business. Still, I dare say I shall be 
able to drag him along for a while till I can afford to 
buy him out in a manner that will make him safe for 
life in a small way, and without crippling us ” — he hugged 
Kissy, and then remarked, carelessly : “ I’m sorry for 
those kids of his ! ” 

Kissy looked up at Jim adoringly. 

“ Mr. Degrief may not be a sleeping partner,” she 
said, “ but I know what you are. You’re a philan- 
thropist ! ” 

Jim laughed again, but this time he jp.lso blushed. 


CHAPTER IV 
The Dinner-party 
I 

It was at the beginning of July, at the close of an 
unusually sultry day, that Kissy gave her first dinner- 
party. 

It took Jim several hours of coaxing and argument to 
bring her courage up to the necessary pitch, and even 
then she lived through the evening in nerve-racking 
trepidation, although every detail of the service had 
been planned and replanned. 

It was a square party, in honour of the Degriefs. 

Degrief had brazenly fished for the invitation. Several 
times he begged Jim to “ drop in one night with Madame, 
to take the fortune of the pot and make the knowledge 
of Jeanne and the children ” ; then when Jim repeatedly 
refused, he deprecat ingly murmured : “ Ah, well, natu- 
rally, one knows that we are but ordinary people, and 
no doubt not of a standing to receive as it should be 
done. If one but knew the ways of the English it would 
be possible to learn, however, and ” 

Till at last Jim lost patience, and interrupted rather 
irritably : 

“ You do not understand, my good friend. I consider 
Mrs. Crighton as my wife, and she has all my respect 
and honour — damn these cant phrases,” he interpolated 
angrily — “ but as yet [he said the words meaningly], as 
yet we have not passed, as you say, before Monsieur 
le Maire , and therefore Madame Degrief might grant 

herself the right to call me to account if ” 

174 


THE DINNER-PARTY 


175 


But this time it was Degrief who interrupted with a 
great uplifting of arms and shoulders. 

“ But enough, enough ! One knows well, mon ami ; 
one has but to see the charming Madame Crighton to 
understand. My wife ? But she will be enchanted 
and very honoured to make the acquaintance of Madame. 
Believe me, mon cher ; I beg of you.” 

All of which, though hating the situation, although 
it was of his own making, Jim faithfully recounted to 
the incredulous Kissy. 

Finally Jim’s arguments broke down her resistance, 
and she gave way to the appealing logic of his appeal. 

“ I don’t want them,” he declared flatly ; “ our little 
selfish life en tete-d-ttie satisfies me completely. As a 
matter of fact I dislike the idea of bringing strangers 
into it ; but if we don’t invite them after this, Degrief 
will consider our silence in the light of an affront, and 
he will be odious about it. It sounds rather a beastly 
thing to say, but they are really rather little people, you 
know, and it probably flatters their foolish vanity to 
feel that they are intimate with us.” Jim might have 
said “ me,” but he was simply hating the snobbish, 
priggish speech he was making in order to make things 
clear to Kissy, and also, with a lover’s generous blind- 
ness, he had come to consider Kissy as his alter ego . 
“ Invite them, my darling, let’s get it over, it need not 
happen again for a long time.” 

Kissy still looked undecided and unhappy. 

“ After all,” he continued, ' “ Madame Degrief may 
turn out to be a nice little woman, perhaps you’ll like 
her. You ought to have a woman friend, dear ; I am 
afraid you must feel lonely sometimes.” 

“ Never,” cried Kissy passionately, “ I’ve always got 
you to think about, and there’s such lots to do always. 
Sewing and mending and reading and everything, and 
I’m going to make jam and preserves this summer.” 


176 


THE BROKEN LAUGH 

“ Well, Madame Degrief will probably be able to give 
you no end of hints about that sort of thing. Belgian 
housewives are the finest in the world.” 

“ She . . . she’ll patronize me,” pouted Kissy dolefully. 

“ I’ll be hanged if she will,” declared Jim in so 
emphatically bellicose a manner that Kissy, reassured 
and confident in Jim’s watchfully protective attitude, 
laughed, though she hadn’t meant to ; and when Kissy 
laughed in the middle of an argument it was the sign 
of her capitulation. 

II 

Footsore and fagged-out, Kissy carefully scanned the 
table for the last time before going to dress. 

It looked quite all right. The silver and linen were 
irreproachable, and the flat bowl of dark Namur pottery 
filled with dark crimson roses was all that could be 
desired. 

Fina, in a new black frock and apron, and a very 
freshly washed air about her lumpy red hands and 
shining cheeks, stood waiting for the final instructions. 

Kissy switched on the lights. The electric bulbs, 
enclosed in shades of pale lemon flowered silk, lined with 
orange, diffused a mellow golden light over the dainty 
little table. It was charming, and Kissy smiled, almost 
reconciled to her fate. 

“ I hope you will not have to ask me anything,” she 
said to Fina, “ but if you do, try to speak low naturally. 
Don’t whisper and get husky, and have to cough ; and 
if anything does go wrong, though I don’t see how it can 
after all I’ve told you, whatever you do, don't cry. Have 
several clean napkins ready in case anything gets spilt, 
and be careful not to joggle the glasses when you sweep 
up the crumbs.” 

“ Oui, m' dame, I’ll do my best,” promised Fina 
meekly. She was wide-eyed and horribly nervous. 


177 


THE DINNER-PARTY 

On the stairs Kissy turned and shouted down : 

“ Fina I ” 

“ V'oui, m'dame ? ” 

“ When the man from Buol’s brings the ice, look and 
see if it is all right and give him fifty centimes for him- 
self. Forget not to close the door of the ice-box when 
you have looked. Serve it on a fringed napkin in the 
crystal dish — ah ! — and remember only to cut the canta- 
loupe at the very last minute.” 

“ V'oui , m'dame ! ” 

“ Thank you, Fina. That’s all.” 

“ A vot' service , m'dame ! ” 

III 

It was rather a tight squeeze on the little terrace when 
Jim and Kissy forgathered with their guests under the 
lowered awning to sip the bitter aperitif that is de rigueur 
when one entertains a “ Brusselaer.” 

However, by placing two of the chairs astride the 
threshold of the smoking-sitting-room it could be 
managed, and the two ladies sat primly and made con- 
versation while Jim and Degrief leaned against the 
balustrade, acting as chorus. 

So far things had not gone too badly. Fina had 
opened the door, taken charge of wraps and hats, and 
ushered in the guests in quite excellent style. 

Kissy knew Degrief, and so she was able to devote 
all her faculties to making the acquaintance of his wife, 
who was so obviously a warm-hearted, good-natured 
little soul that Kissy immediately lost all fear of being 
patronized. 

Jeanne Degrief was a faded, blonde woman of early 
thirties that looked forties ; badly dressed in a horrible 
frock of stiff green velvet, and shockingly corsetted. 

Once she must have had glorious hair and a wonderful 
complexion, but child-bearing under unfavourable condi- 

M 


178 


THE BROKEN LAUGH 

tions, clumsily wielded tongs, and the thousand-and-one 
worries of making stubborn ends meet, had wrought 
irreparable havoc with those, her only, claims to beauty. 
She stared frankly at Kissy with candidly envious eyes, 
and while the sultry weather and the wonderful view 
from the terrace were being exhaustively discussed, she 
avidly noted every detail of Kissy’s appearance, from 
the dainty brocade-shoes with their diamond buckles 
to the upward sweep of the glossy hair that uncovered 
Kissy’s charmingly modelled nape. Her eyes lingered 
longingly over the expensive simplicity of the black char - 
meuse frock — certainly from Zondervan’s she decided; 
the unostentatious but exquisite peari-and-diamond 
barrette that fastened the net ruffles of the low, open 
collar, and the attractive look of Kissy’s ankles through 
the finest silk stockings she had ever seen. 

Under this analytic gaze Kissy’s nervousness returned 
overwhelmingly, but bravely she kept up her end of 
the laboured conversation ; trying to keep cool and 
appear at her ease and to remember at the same time 
whether she had told Fina to announce dinner whenever 
it was ready, or whether the girl expected her to ring, 
as she usually did, because Jim was so often late for 
meals. 

It seemed to Kissy that they had been sitting on 
the terrace for at least an hour. Would Fina never 
come ? 

At last out of the corner of her eye Kissy became 
aware that the girl was standing below, in the garden 
near the wall, half-hidden by the creeper. She was 
staring hypnotically at her mistress, interrogation written 
large on her face. 

The moment she caught Kissy’s eye, her anxious 
expression broke into a broad grin of relief. With rapid 
pantomimic gestures she indicated, by thrusting her 
index repeatedly at her open mouth, that dinner was 


THE DINNER-PARTY I7& 

ready, then, expressively, she questioned with outspread 
palms and raised eyebrows. 

Kissy gave a slight nod and affirmatively blinked her 
eyes. 

Fina understood and obediently vanished to appear 
almost directly in the smoking-room. The Degriefs, 
noticing her, paused expectantly. This was more than 
Fina had bargained for. In her nervousness she pitched 
her voice too low : 

“ Madmae est — ” she began, and then choked with 
a husky gasp. Resolved to do her best, however, she 
bravely cleared her throat and inflated her sturdy little 
breast. 

“ Madame est servie ,” she blared, and in spite of the 
projecting walls, the awning and the thickness of the 
Virginian creeper, all the neighbours were informed of 
Kissy ’s dinner-party. 

IV 

With the soup came the first flash of lightning, 
followed by a fabulous roll of thunder. 

Jim, knowing Kissy’s nervous terror of a thunder- 
storm, looked quickly into her eyes, perfectly willing to 
have the windows closed and the shutters barred if she 
pleased, and indulgently prepared to make the best of 
it if she suddenly ran from the room to hide in the 
cellar. 

But Kissy, her grey eyes black with fear, stared mean- 
ingly back at Jim, commanding silence ; and, seeing 
that Madame Degrief was watching with admiration the 
marvellous play of the trees as they bent and quivered 
under the rush of rain, writhing in the amazing blue- 
white glare of the lightning, she gave Fina the order to 
slightly raise the awning so that the view over the wood 
could be more clearly seen from the inner room where 
they sat. 


180 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

It rained unbelievably, lashing down on the awning 
in an endless swirl that swept over the edge and down 
on to the terrace in cataracts. The flood hissed and 
sung on the gravel, battering the garden flat ; while 
outside, in the street, one could hear the rapid beat of 
flying feet running to shelter. In the harbour of the 
little dining-room the iced tomato consomme made its 
appearance and was disposed of safely — one could hardly 
go wrong over that ; then Fina handed round the trout 
d la Meunibre , and surprisingly fielded a piece of lemon 
that slipped off Madame Degrief’s over-eager spoon with 
the deft assurance of an old campaigner. The dish was 
cooked in a satisfactory manner, and Kissy felt that 
part of her worries already was dropping behind her. 

But suddenly she noticed to her dismay that Degrief, 
ignoring the silver implement, on the blade of which 
subaqueous weeds and animals were suggestively en- 
graved, was using a steel knife to dissect his fish. 

Would Fina remark this, and when she cleared away 
the fish-course remove it and substitute another knife 
in its place — and, horrible doubt, would there now he 
enough knives to last out the meal — or would she have to 
tell Fina, and perhaps embarrass Degrief by thus seem- 
ing to be aware of his error ? 

Countless seconds ticked away while Kissv pondered 
over this problem, when suddenly Degrief noticed his 
mistake. Did his wife kick him under the table, was it 
a case of telepathy, or did he merely use his eyes ? 
Seizing a piece of bread he wiped the blade of the knife 
he was using and put it back on the tablecloth by his 
plate, picked up the proper instrument, calmly swallowed 
the piece of bread, and continued to discuss his trout, 
on the cooking of which he complimented Kissy. 

And the rain continued, drumming tirelessly. It was 
too dark by then to see the grey haze of the slanting 
waters, but the hiss and the patter were ceaseless. The 


THE DINNER-PARTY 181 

thunder, however, had rumbled into far-away mutter- 
ings, and the lightning was no more than a pale illumina- 
tion of the sky against which the trees banked massively. 
The sensuous smell of drenched earth crept in through 
the open window, and a cool breeze fluttered the curtains. 

Every one inhaled deeply and sniffed rapturously with 
frank enjoyment. There was- an appreciative silence, 
and then Kissy realized that plates were emptjr, and 
that Fina, who should have been clearing them away, 
had vanished from the room. 

She rang, pressing the little electric button with 
nervous forefinger. 

Nobody came. 

From the basement rose the sounds of clattering pails 
and of brooms swishing through water. Kissy rang 
again, and the whole eternity of a minute passed before 
a great noise of clattering was heard on the kitchen 
stairs. 

Had Fina gone mad ? Surely she was not coming 
into the dining-room with her sabots on ? 

Two loud clicks, and a bumpety sound as something 
wooden rolled down a flight of stone stairs, reassured 
Kissy on that point, and then Fina entered, buttoning 
her right cuff. She looked very hot, her hair was untidy, 
and the bottom of her apron wringing wet. 

As she removed Kissy’s plate she whispered, in the 
dreaded husky whisper-— the sort of whisper one hears 
in a dentist’s waiting-room — “ It is the drain. He has 
overrun himself ; there is a foot of water in the kitchen ! ” 

“ Pra-god, don’t let Charlotte burn the duck,” prayed 
Kissy urgently, as she reassured Fina with a curt “ Do 
for the best and lose not thy head.” 

Fina and Charlotte both rose nobly to the occasion, 
and though the sounds of mopping and splashing were 
practically ceaseless they were subdued enough to be 
only perceived by Kissy’s forewarned ear. The duck 


182 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

was not burned, the salad that accompanied the chaud - 
froid (sent up from the Chapon Fin) was perfect, and 
the breathless Fina, who had doubled her duties as 
parlour-maid with those of temporary scavenger, did 
not pant too heavily as she passed the dishes. 

It would not do to go so far as to affirm that Madame 
Degrief did not perceive that something was wrong, but 
at all events she did not even suspect the extent of the 
calamity below stairs. Had she done so she would have 
been quite capable of tucking up her green velvet, ask- 
ing for a loque d reloqueter* and offering to give the 
servants a helping hand ; which would doubtless have 
been excessively kind but extremely embarrassing for 
all persons concerned. 

Jim and Degrief were masculinely unconscious of a 
domestic crisis, and it was only later when Jim, noticing 
a slow deep blush creeping over Kissy’s face, followed 
her gaze and saw any cause for distress. Behind Madame 
Degrief’s left shoulder stood Fina, crimson of cheek and 
obviously within gulping distance of tears ; in her hands 
she bore a flat crystal dish in the centre of which the 
icecream had . . . sat down ! 

Indeed, it had not so much sat as sprawled dis- 
gustingly, it was as obscene as a corsetless drunken 
woman. 

And there was no excuse for Fina. She could not 
pretext the extra rush caused by the unexpected deluge. 
By the look of the ruin it was obvious that it had been 
taken out of the Refrigerator and forgotten. Kissy was 
excessively angry. 

For the first time during the evening Jim was conscious 
of an uncomfortable sensation of anxiety. Would Kissy 
reproach the girl ? 

It would be hateful if she did, for Fina was stubborn 

* Loque & reloqueter : the floor-cloth, which is the national flag of 
Belgian domesticity. 


THE DINNER-PARTY 183 

as well as young and ignorant, and she might try to 
argue out an excuse. 

Jim need not have worried ; Kissy again instinctively 
did the only possible thing, and did it with a charming 
air of ease and breeding. 

“ Take it away,” she said to Fina, “ and bring the 
petits-fours and the bonbons at once ” ; and then to 
Madame Degrief, who had turned to look at what was 
being so ruthlessly condemned, “ I am so sorry,” she 
said simply. 

But Madame Degrief would not be done out of her 
sweet. 

“ Wait, m'fille ,” she cried to Fina, and turned to 
Kissy. “ Chbe petite madame , please not to send it 
away ; it has no longer of an eye, no doubt, but the 
pieces they will be good. After all, it must melt some- 
time. It will be a cream of the most exquisite. I beg 
you to let content my greediness.” 

Degrief echoed his wife, and Fina held the dish at 
the lady’s elbow with a meekly triumphant smirk that 
made Kissy long to shake her. It was not easy to keep 
an entirely passive face, and yet Kissy managed it ; 
only the spoon chinked a little as she laid it back on 
the dish after helping herself to the savoury but un- 
pleasant-looking mess, and she noticed that her hands 
were trembling. 

“ How common I must be,” she thought, “ to be 
worried by such little things. I’m sure a real lady 
wouldn’t mind.” She blamed herself instead of en- 
viously thinking that a real lady would probably have 
competent servants, and she looked imploringly at Jim, 
as if to say, “ Please bear with me, I’m doing my best.” 

But Jim’s eyes were fiercely fixed on his plate. He 
was battling with the urgent desire to pick Kissy up 
in his arms and hug her. It was too bad that she should 
be bothered and tormented by this kind of foolish 


184 


THE BROKEN LAUGH 

mishap. Poor little woman, sitting there with such a 
pathetic air of dainty dignity while that clumsy red- 
cheeked fool handed round that sickly mess ! How 
well she had behaved about the thunderstorm, and how 
proudly her well-shaped head was set on the slim neck 
that he loved to circle caressingly with his two hands. 
He looked up and met her eyes ; the look with which 
he answered it was so full of love that Kissy shuddered 
with gladness. She smiled back at him radiantly, for- 
getting for an instant that they were not alone. 

V 

The rain having ceased at last, coffee was taken on the 
terrace — well, partly on the terrace, partly on the 
thresnold of the smoking-room — while Fina cleared away 
with only one smash. 

The rest of the evening passed as such evenings do — 
wastefully, unprofitably ; groping after topics of con- 
versation that might be of mutual interest, and when 
one was discoveied discussing it threadbare, and only 
abandoning it regretfully when the ultimate suggestion 
it could yield had been thoroughly exhausted. 

And it was late before Jim and Kissy were rid of their 
exuberantly grateful guests. 

At the last-longed-for moment Degrief had to explain 
to Jim a very plausible reason why he would not come 
to the office to-morrow, and Madame had to exact from 
Kissy not the vague promise that she would come “ one 
of these days ” to drink coffee with her in the afternoon, 
but the definite fixing of day and hour. After which 
they both lengthily expressed their delight at the char- 
mante soiree that had been passed, and finally departed, 
stepping carefully along the still-dripping pavement, 
Madame Degriefs green velvet held high over a starched 
white petticoat. 


THE DINNER-PARTY 185 

Jim’s method of closing the door behind the retreating 
couple was suspiciously like a bang 1 

Then before the scandalized Kissy could object he 
picked her bodily up in his arms, carried her breast- 
high, despite her struggles, through the dining-smoking- 
sitting-room out on to the terrace ; there he dropped 
her into a deep armchair, and then went back into the 
house and switched off the lights. 

From below came the rattle of the kitchen-door 
closing, the rusty scroop of a bolt shot home and the 
snap of a key turning in its lock. The servants were 
going up. 

Soon there was silence broken only by the occasional 
but persistent drip of the wet leaves, and the far-away 
faint tinkle of a piano which played a dainty old-time 
minuet. 

Jim knelt by Kissy ’s chair, and their movements met 
as he put out his arm and she leaned towards him. 
Cheek to cheek they stared into the damp darkness of 
the wood. Overhead a sulky moon slipped sullenly 
behind a cloud. 

Seizing Kissy’s hand Jim bent and passionately kissed 
her palm, then he held it to his forehead and over his 
closed eyes, which w r ere burning hot. Solicitously she 
leaned above him, caressing with her free hand the soft 
short hairs at the back of his head, but before she could 
formulate it his voice interrupted the question that was 
gathering on her lips. 

“ My dearest dear,” he whispered in muffled tones, 
“ my dearest dear, do you think you would care to 
marry me?” 


CHAPTER V 
War 
I 

. . therefore it seems as if war is inevitable ; let us 
hope that France is ready and that the damned anti- 
militarists have not prepared a walk-over for Germany. 
But I confess that I am pessimistic. 

“ I am anxious to be home again, my darling. Things 
have dragged horribly here, but the day after to-morrow 
I sign up the deal, and the same evening I intend to 
leave. I hope to be in Brussels early Sunday morning. 
I’ll wire the exact hour, but don’t come to the station, 
unless you really want to. Wait for me in the Little 
House — I know you understand.” 

Of course Kissy understood ! 

She was reading Jim’s letter for the umptieth time ; 
it was the last she had received, and the last she would 
receive, since he was due, himself, in flesh and blood 
within the next hour. 

Yes, war was inevitable. The letter was dated from 
July 28 , and since it had been written events had 
culminated rapidly. 

Spurning the sincerely conciliatory suggestions of 
Russia, and the pacific offers of mediation from England, 
Germany, urging on her accomplice Austria in the criminal 
and unwarranted attack on the already war-exhausted 
Serbians, was rapidly discarding her now useless mask 
of hypocritical altruism, and was rushing headlong into 
the war with France that she so ardently desired. 

The President of the French Republic had returned 
186 


WAR 187 

with all haste from his official journey to Russia ; the 
astounding climax of the Caillaux case was forgotten, 
Europe held its breath expectantly. Even the sup- 
posedly neutral countries, such as Belgium, felt the 
uneasy . forerunning tremor of the greatest conflict 
civilization had ever seen. 

In Brussels anxious crowds gathered in cafes , at street 
corners, outside newspaper offices ; the “ dailies ” pub- 
lished extra editions as swiftly as they could be set up 
and printed, which were snatched up by the waiting 
crowds with hungry impatience. 

Instinctively the words Alliance Russc , Entente Cor - 
diale , and the phrase “ England, Mistress of the Seas,” 
slipped from tightened lips and carried a warmly reassur- 
ing sound. 

Mysteriously the prices of the commonest kinds of 
food rose to incredible sums, which were paid ... by 
those who could pay. From her storeroom the house- 
wife turned to her linen-cupboard and boxroom, and 
overlooked the soles of her husband’s stoutes' boots. 
Romantic girls bought books on ambulance and first- 
aid duties, and postured in front of their looking-glasses 
with linen napkins bound round their heads to simulate 
the sister-of-mercy coif 

Gold, silver, and small change vanished like magic 
from the circulation. 

The stations were crowded with soldiers, recalled 
from their leave, departing to rejoin regiments at Liege, 
Namur, and Antwerp. 

The most optimistic knew it, even wdiile yet they 
argued to the contrary. War was inevitable, and with 
it would come the cortege of gallantry and infamy, the 
heroes and traitors, brave men and cowards ; the oppor- 
tunities for the grasping greed of those who can trade 
while others die, of those who grow fat on the hunger of 
the widow and orphan. 


188 


THE BROKEN LAUGH 

War, which is the synonym of renunciation, crime, 
and glory. War, a thing of shrieking headlines and of 
silent tragedies ; the grim monster that civilization has 
rendered grimmer and infinitely more barbaric than 
when army met army to the clash of steel. War, the 
monstrous state of affairs that so few of those who 
waved frantic flags during the first days of August could 
adequately imagine. 

To hundreds of sheltered civilians war was just a 
cinematograph reel come to life, and till experience tore 
their complacency to tatters they prepared to sit down 
and watch the actors from velvet-cushioned seats in the 
stalls. 


II 

To Kissy the idea of war did not bring any particular 
suggestion of horror. 

Vaguely she remembered the Transvaal campaign ; 
and those recollections were of riotously jolly outings to 
celebrate “ nights.” There had been a Maf eking night 
and a Ladysmith night, with illuminations and confetti 
and “ teasers.” And the big girls at school had knitted 
mufflers and sleeping helmets of mustardy coloured wool ; 
they had also worshipped button portraits of “ Bobs ” 
and Baden-Powell. It was then also that Kipling first 
became known to Kissy on the score — that and no 
other — of the “ Absent-minded Beggar,” which were, 
Kissy said, verses that went with such a lilt that you 
didn’t have to sit down and learn them, word by word, 
with your fingers in your ears, in order to know them by 
heart ; they were full of slang and common expressions 
such as Aunt Liz condemned, and yet they brought a 
lump into your throat, you didn’t know why, and made 
you want to be big enough to have a sweetheart at the 
place that was called the Front — wherever that might 
be. 


WAR 189 

And so while she was impatiently waiting for his return 
Kissy thought greatly less about the possibility of war 
between France and Germany than she did about the 
wonderful future that she was to share with Jim. 

As soon as he returned from Sweden they were to 
start for England, where Kissy would once more see 
Aunt Liz — conciliatory presents had already been pur- 
chased — and prepare for that most wonderful event, her 
marriage with Jim. 

Life was really far more marvellous than the most 
exciting novel. 

And not only did marriage, Kissy thought, mean that 
thing called respectability and Jim-for-ever-after-till- 
death-us-do-part-Amen ; but it also meant those little 
soft snuggling helpless creatures called babies, and 
Kissy’ s imagination drew delightful pictures of a tiny 
curly haired thing toddling between Jim and her, with 
dear clumsy little feet, and looking up into her eyes, 
saying, “ Mum-mum.” 

“ Do you think we could afford babies ? ” she asked 
Jim. 

He replied as an indulgent parent answers a child who 
is clamouring for the possession of a destructive trouble- 
giving puppy : “ Well, we’ll see about it — if business is 
good ! ” 

It was not that Jim had any deep-rooted objection 
to children, but Kissy entirely filled his heart, and he 
was so engrossed in his love for her that he desired 
nothing else ; so long as she was there, life was complete. 
When Kissy taxed him with his indifference to the joys 
of paternity, he declared : 

“ I care for nothing and no one in the whole universe 
but you, my darling.” 

“ And your work,” objected Kissy. 

“ And my work only because it means building up the 
future for you ; I want to be rich for you. I haven’t 


190 


THE BROKEN LAUGH 

nearly enough of my own. I want to earn enough to 
make you the happiest woman on earth.” 

“ But I am the happiest woman on earth already. 
It’s only because I love you so that I want so badly to 
have a little you ! ” 

Jim laughed with superior wisdom. 

“ Wait a bit,” he said, “ you’re only a baby yourself ! 
Besides, when we do have little ‘ me’s ’ and ‘ you’s ’ — 
personally I think one of each would be enough — we’ll 
be glad of all the shekels I can put aside. We’ll want 
the most glorified kinds of English nurses and gover- 
nesses, you know, for our babies, and splendiferous 
nurseries, the sort that look like a cross between a sana- 
torium and a model dairy ! We don’t want our kiddies 
to be dragged up in the kitchen, and mauled about by 
greasy maids- of-all- work, like the Degrief children, do 
we ? ” 

Kissy, who had made the acquaintance of those three 
small specimens of lower-class humanity, emphatically 
agreed. 

“ And anyway,” wickedly concluded Jim, “ I think 
this is a very indelicate conversation,” a conclusion 
which so embarrassed Kissy that she hastily began to 
talk of Jim’s forthcoming journey which both of them 
were dreading to an equal degree. 

Ill 

The object of this journey was of the utmost impor- 
tance to Jim’s commercial career. He intended to pur- 
chase, if he could come to terms with the proprietor and 
inventor, the European patents of a certain saw that, 
in Jim’s opinion, after having seen it in action in various 
Canadian sawmills, was to revolutionize the timber- 
yards of Europe. 

It would not only economize labour, but could be run 
infinitely more cheaply than the types of machines now 


WAR 191 

in use, and its work was more efficacious and rapid than 
that of the old models. 

Jim’s idea in acquiring the patent of this machine 
was not only to use one or several of them in his own 
sheds, but to exact from all timber merchants who 
wished to employ it a percentage on the cubic output 
of each machine. Say, in conservative figures, 50 per 
cent, of the difference realized on the inferior work of 
the old machines. After a few months’ experimental 
work with the “ Soderstrom ” — it was named after the 
inventor — Jim expected to establish an equitable scale 
of royalties to be exacted. Such were the merits of the 
“ Soderstrom ” that if only a few pioneers adopted it 
their fellow-competitors had to follow suit, or else become, 
if they insisted on sticking to old methods, hopelessly 
outclassed by the superiority of the rival delivery. 

Once the ball was set rolling it would proceed auto- 
matically. In the American slang Jim had picked up 
on his trip : it was a “ fat ” proposition, if only he could 
get firm hold of it. 

Although she understood but little about business or 
business matters, Jim liked to talk over his affairs with 
Kissy, and he had thoroughly discussed this matter with 
her. Besides in this case it meant a fairly large im- 
mobilization of capital and, of course, the risk that is 
inherent to the launching on the market of new methods. 
There were also several other bidders eager to acquire 
the invention, and Jim thought it only fair to tell Kissy 
that the more capital he tied up in this pet scheme the 
leaner would be the months and perhaps the years that 
would precede the “ fat ” results aforesaid. 

“ But, of course, it wouldn’t prevent their going to 
England and getting married ; nothing could prevent 
that ! ” 

Kissy was overjoyed. 

“You want to do it,” she said, “ that’s enough for 


192 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

me. Besides it sounds awfully thrilling — and think, 
how jolly for me, you won’t be able to scold when I try 
to cut down expenses ! ” 

Thereupon she happily made out a list of pet economies 
and planned such drastic measures that Jim swore he 
would give up the whole idea unless she gave her most 
“ honest-in jun word of honour ” that she would leave 
the necessary paring to his judgment. 

In revenge Kissy ran her housekeeping bills so that 
they amounted to the feeble total of five francs a day 
during the three weeks of Jim’s absence ; and in the 
face of his furious outcry afterwards was able to prove 
to him that she had wanted for nothing ; neither had 
the servants. 

One could do that sort of thing in Brussels — before 
the war. 


IV 

Jim returned on the morning of August 2. It was 
a heavy menacing Sunday, and overhead storm-clouds 
gathered lowering and grey, grey like the German cam- 
paign uniform, and the dull skies frowned on the hundreds 
and thousands that tramped the streets from early 
morning till late at night. 

The open-fronted cafes of the Place de Brouck£re 
and the Central Boulevards were gorged with human 
beings in quest of companionship and gossip. The mass 
of the middle-class population were huddled together 
like startled sheep in taverns, bodegas, and brasseries 
that, like surfeited giants, cast forth their excess 
over the pavements and out into the middle of the 
roadway. 

“ Germany has declared war against Russia,” was the 
hushed cry. What would be the next move ? France, 
of course ! And then ? What would be the attitude 
of England, and . . - was there . . . could there pos- 


WAR 193 

sibly be . . . any truth in the warning cry of the pessi- 
mists that the Prussian armies would tramp through 
Belgium ? 

And if they did ? What then ? 

Among the women prevailed a sharp note of excited 
hysteria, and infinite quantities of strong black coffee 
were consumed. Elderly men were more reserved : 
grey-headed and middle-aged fathers of families were 
grave and preoccupied and stared broodingly at their 
women-folk and little ones. When boisterous boys and 
young men shouting the patriotic “ Brabansonne” and 
the soul-thrilling “ Marseillaise ” passed down the streets 
in enthusiastic groups to enlist, these older men remained 
stolidly seated, and when rushes were made for the doors 
and windows, and people clambered on chairs to see the 
brave young fools, who went to war as to a picnic, go 
by, they stared sullenly into their half-empty glasses and 
recalled bitterly half-forgotten memories of ’70 ! 

Then also had imbeciles chanted patriotic songs, 
howling the braggart “ d Berlin ”... then also they 
had wept with easy emotion when tricolour flags were 
waved — and see what had happened . . . ! 

It might happen again. 

And even if victory crowned the conflict, at what 
price would it be achieved ? The adolescence and hale 
manhood of the country would go to pay the price. 
Further toll might be exacted. Past and future genera- 
tions, the children and the old folks, would be also 
sacrificed to complete the holocaust of the battlefield, 
since in war the last crust goes to the man who fights. 

Belgium, that fertile, contented little land of plenty, 
devastated by war that could bring nothing but evil in 
its train, and why ? 

Because one man dared, dared to be omnipotent ; and 
there were fools still alive who let such omnipotence 
survive. 


N 


194 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

It was damnably unbelievable. 

But war fever is as contagious as love fever, and even 
the grey-beards joined in the growing madness of anger 
that possessed the city — when, coming with the evening, 
the news of the insult that was the Prussian ultimatum 
to Belgium goaded the most pacific to pugnacious 
vociferation. 

The outrage was felt equally by all. Individuals were 
white and trembling with fury, as if they had been 
struck across the lips by an invisible, unpunishable hand. 
A tremor of abhorrence shook Brussels with a retching 
shudder of hatred, and while women wept, but put forth 
no demur, strong boys of sixteen and hardy veterans of 
sixty joined in the surging crowds outside the recruiting 
stations. 

Jim and Kissy rose at dawn next morning. They, 
too, had gone “ down -town ” the night before. They, 
too, although they were strangers, had indignantly 
resented the outrage of the ultimatum, for Brussels is 
an endearing city, and one feels at home there more 
speedily than in any other foreign town. 

The trams clanging their way into the heart of the 
city were crowded. Stranger talked to stranger ; class 
fraternized with class ; the conviction was universal 
that King Albert and his Government would refuse to 
passively permit Germany to take her troops through 
Belgium in order to attack France on her unprepared 
frontier. But in spite of one’s intimate conviction one 
would, nevertheless, feel happier to see the refutal of 
the ultimatum set down in black on white in La Dernidre 
Heure. 

A feverish crowd gathered round the newspaper 
offices to wait for the special edition that would contain 
the desired news, and when the first copies appeared 
they were snatched up with such hasty violence that, 
damp and flimsy from the presses, they tore and shredded 


WAR 195 

into undecipherable fragments. But more and more 
were distributed, and no sooner had one person fairly 
read aloud the message of defiance with a dozen strangers 
craning over his shoulders than the words were cried 
aloud, shouted to the four winds, and in a flash the news 
was over the whole city. 

All the majesty of unyielding integrity lay in the 
dignity of the rebuke that was couched in such simple 
terms that the very children could understand and thrill 
as they spelt out the letters over which their mothers 
had wept with pride mingled with resigned apprehension. 

“ Belgium energetically protesting against all viola- 
tion of her territory is prepared, by all the means at 
her disposal, to defend her neutrality.” 

Then it meant war — what other means were at her 
disposal ? 

And those means ! How limited were they ? 

Wonderful, marvellous, heroic little country. Proudly 
facing overwhelming odds rather than dishonour. 

And facing them unprepared, unready, and with the 
knowledge that the first shock, the first clashing contact, 
might come, not within a week, nor within days, but 
perhaps within hours . . . immediately ! 

It was sublime. 

Sublimely foolish, too, that such a thing could be. 

V 

Telegrams succeeded telegrams, special edition followed 
special edition ; in the Galeries St. -Hubert a compact 
crowd waited outside Duchesne’s, their eyes glued to 
the smudgy blackboard on which the news was chalked 
up as soon as the wires had finished clicking it through. 

From the depth of the city appeared a tattered riff- 
raff of hawkers ; collarless lads, barefooted rapscallions, 
bold-eyed girls with pomaded locks selling patriotic 
emblems ; the black, yellow, and red of Belgiuinknotted 


196 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

with the blue, white, and red of France. Post cards of 
the famous “ Manneken ” with cynical incontinence 
showering the invaders, and gaudy calico flags so hastily 
put together that the material was puckered from the 
sewing-machine, and frayed ends of cotton terminated 
the seams. 

It was an eloquent proof of the flamboyance of surface 
patriotism that these people did a roaring trade. 

Excited boy-scouts — visibly inflated, but trying not 
to appear so, by their newly acquired armlets bearing 
the letters “ S. M.” * — became active in the city. They 
boarded the trams with an air of tremendous importance 
that was ludicrously ill-suited to the infantile faces of 
some of the smaller children. The older boys, those of 
the smudgily incipient moustaches, seemed a little over- 
whelmed by, and self-conscious of, their sudden pro- 
pulsion into public affairs. 

Frantic automobiles tore through the streets and, 
exempted from the ordinary traffic laws by the magic 
S. M. that had been daubed upon their bonnets, left 
behind them a trail of wrathful and startled citizens. 

The Army “ vets ” held their open-air tribunals in 
the public market-place ; the red coals of the braziers 
that heated the branding-irons glowed pallidly in the 
August sunshine, and above the dark coals danced a 
simmering heat haze. 

In the open space of the Place Poelaert, in the shadow 
of the Palais de Justice, a group of English trippers of 
Cookish and cockney persuasion crossed hands and 
chanted the dirge-like “ Auld Lang Syne.” A Belgian 
audience viewed the absurd performance with lenient 
sympathy, and when one of the Englishmen thumped 
an astonished Belgian policeman on the back and pro- 
mised him that “ We’ll see yer through, oV man,” it 
cheered and sang the “ Braban^onne ” and behaved 
* S. M. = service militaire. 


WAR 197 

with endearing foolishness, impeding the road traffic for 
a considerable time. 

These were days when deep emotions sent frothing 
bubbles to churn up a surface agitation which, possibly, 
lacked dignity, but was impressive in its homogenesis. 

VI 

On August 4, at one o’clock, came Germany’s answer 
to Belgium’s reply to the ultimatum. 

The newsboys passed a happy hour. But after the 
first rush to read the actual wording of the declaration 
the momentarily abandoned tasks of preparation were 
resumed. 

Already the people were attuned to the idea of war, 
they had lived and slept with it for twenty-four hours ; 
the concrete setting-down of the event could add nothing 
to the admitted fact. And later, although England’s 
firmly decisive attitude was greeted with laudatory 
cheers, it caused no real surprise. “ One always knew 
one could count on ces gens -Id ” was the cry, and work 
went on with increasing enthusiasm. 

Private ambulances had appeared and were appearing 
everywhere. Large emporiums turned their dismantled 
departments into bleak hospital-wards. Petits hotels in 
the Avenue Louise whitened their windows, stripped 
bare their drawing-, smoking-, billiard- and dining- 
rooms, and flew the Red Cross of Geneva. Doctors were 
besieged with the most rash requests for “ ambulance 
jobs,” and in desperation before the overwhelming offers 
of unskilled labour organized ambulance classes that 
became bedlamized debating societies. 

Young girls begged from house to house, rattling noisy 
alms-boxes and collecting bedding and useful utensils 
for the ambulances. 

The screech of tearing linen became a familiar sound, 
and the piles of bandages grew. 


198 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

The Belgian soldier does not care to go to bed with 
trousers on, therefore nightshirts, not pyjamas, were in 
great demand, and also bed-pans, which so few people 
seemed to possess. 

There were exciting scenes when German spies were 
run to earth and . . . disposed of. Wireless-telegraph 
stations were located and destroyed. German properties, 
beer-halls, and Weinstubes were destructively visited by 
crowds of anti-Prussian fanatics, inaugurating a deplor- 
able but deciduous phase which was quickly suppressed. 

Innumerable useful and useless charitable societies 
were formed, run by committees that become hot-beds 
of jealousy, vanity, and self-advertisement. Then, 
having done just so much, people became conscious of 
their merit and sat down to wait with unrealized im- 
patience for the reward of their labours in the shape of 
the first wounded, the widows, and the orphans. 

It was a brief wait. 


CHAPTER VI 
The Warm Hearthstone 
I 

Kissy was shamefully glad, and the tears she wept were 
those of happy relief when, on the morning of August 19, 
they brought Jim home to the Little House with a 
smashed forearm and a bullet through his shoulder. 

At least now he had 4 4 done his bit ” and paid his toll, 
and Kissy was free to keep him and nurse him for a 
little while at least. 

Resolutely she put aside the thought that when he 
was well she would probably have to sink again into the 
hell of anxiety in which she had lived during the last 
fortnight. She concentrated all her energies to the task 
of intelligently carrying out the doctor’s orders and 
organizing a well-ordered silence round the room in 
which Jim feverishly dozed and muttered, reliving in 
the intensified terror of delirium the horrible scenes which 
he had witnessed. She succeeded admirably, proving no 
exception to the rule that nurses are born, not made. 

44 We must do what we can, you know, my dear,” 
he had told Kissy the moment it became clear that 
Germany was preparing to violate Belgian territory. 
And Kissy, bravely checking the sob of disappointment 
that swelled her throat as she thought of the postponed 
journey to England, agreed and settled down uncom- 
plainingly to the hardest job in existence, that of waiting 
in loneliness when rumours of disaster are abroad, and 
when newspapers are a mass of over-censured contradic- 
tions. 


199 


200 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

For after the thrill of pride at the wonderful page of 
history that was written in the shadow of the forts of 
Li6ge, anxiety grew apace ; and the day on which the 
Queen of Belgium and her children left Brussels for 
Antwerp people began to fear the menace that so soon 
became a reality. 

Kissy was alone that day. Jim had spent a short 
night at home and had departed with the jdawn. He 
had been dog-tired. There were deep lines of dis- 
heartenment on his face, and despondency darkened his 
eyes. 

“ They’re such damned brutes, those Boches,” he 
said to Kissy drowsily, as he dropped on to the bed and 
wearily dragged his legs into the covers— “ such un- 
mitigated blackguards,” and then he had immediately 
drifted into heavy silent sleep, that Kissy,. lying awake 
in the pale luminosity of the summer night, watched 
over tenderly. 

When the breeze freshened in through the open window 
she drew the covers more closely up to his chin ; he 
instinctively felt the movement, and blindly groping, 
pulled her close. For a brief half-hour with her head 
pillowed on his shoulder she dozed, and then woke to 
slip away and prepare for his departure. 

Jim had been the first to organize a private squad of 
ambulance automobiles. He had gathered together a 
dozen of his friends, rich men of commerce and of 
leisure, who were willing to sacrifice their time, money, 
and cars. The bodies had been stripped from the chassis, 
and Jim’s men toiled through a sweating day and night 
at the yard to fix new frameworks, carefully covered 
and canvased, that would enable each car to carry from 
four to eight stretchers. 

The car Jim drove was a powerful Daimler, with 
which he did excellent work. The organization had 
been welcomed by the authorities, who were more than 


THE WARM HEARTHSTONE 201 

grateful for efficient aid in the overworked ambulance 
department. 

Chaffing at his position behind the fighting-lines, 
especially after the English Expeditionary Corps came 
into the field of action, Jim took repeated and sometimes 
thoughtlessly unnecessary risks. Twice under fire he 
helped to evacuate the wounded from exposed field 
hospitals that, with Teutonic impartiality, the enemy 
were shelling. In order to save time he would, on 
return trips after having conveyed one human cargo 
to safety, take short cuts that were dangerously within 
the firing-line in order to get back quicker to the waiting 
wounded and carry them to their Mecca of bed, fresh 
sheets, clean bandages, and deft-fingered attendance. 

It was on one of these return journeys that he was 
wounded. The noise of the motor drowned the spitting 
zip of the bullets, and had it not been for the lead- 
spattered trees that bordered the road, and the occasional 
visible scar that dented the bonnet of the car, he would 
hardly have known he was within range of the enemy. 

The shock, as he was struck in the right shoulder, 
was so heavy and unexpected that for an instant he 
lost control of the steering-wheel, the car viciously 
skidded on the greasy road over which they were so 
swiftly travelling, hurled itself at a tree, and a few 
minutes later when Jim’s companion, who had fallen 
clear, dazedly staggered to his feet, he discovered a 
scrap-iron wreck under which Jim lay with, marvel- 
lously, nothing worse than the wound that was the 
first cause of the disaster, and a badly fractured fore- 
arm. 

“ Tinker me up,” he said to the military doctor with 
brief earnestness, “ and send me home ; I won’t take up 
valuable space here.” 


202 


THE BROKEN LAUGH 


II 

August 20 dawned misty and thunder-thick. Jim 
and Kissy from the first moment of consciousness 
became intangibly aware of something new. 

An extraordinary silence brooded portentously over 
the city. 

The fever had left him, and there was no delirium in 
Jim’s eyes as he turned his head uneasily on the pillow, 
listening first with one ear and then with the other. He 
tried to lift his head, but the wounded shoulder pro- 
tested, and Kissy, putting her hand on his forehead, 
gently pressed him back on his pillow with stem insis- 
tence. He growled at her healthily, and — without 
apologizing — clamoured for news. 

“ Something’s up,” he said. “ Where are the papers ? ” 
There was an impatient silence while Fina was rung 
for. No papers had yet been slipped into the letter- 
box. 

“ For God’s sake then go to the end of the street and 
try to find out what’s happening ! They must be selling 
the papers in the Avenue Louise. It’s nearly eight 
o’clock. No — no — no, damn it ” — as Kissy ’s hand again 
hovered over the bell-button — “ don’t send a servant, 
they’re so slow ; go yourself.” And hastily throwing on 
some clothes Kissy departed, having installed Fina in 
the dressing-room with strict orders to call her mother 
if 4 4 Monsieur ” wanted anything. 

But “ Monsieur ” needed nothing. Nothing but the 
news for which he was clamouring, and while Kissy was 
away he lay motionless, with closed eyes and straining 
ears, silently cursing the throbbing, burning ache in 
his arm and shoulder that had put him so completely 
out of gear, classing him with the worse than useless — 
the burdensome. 

Kissy ran quickly down the Avenue Lepetit in the 


THE WARM HEARTHSTONE 208 

self-conscious mood of the fastidious bath-lover who 
suddenly finds herself abroad in an unwashed condi- 
tion. 

She was enormously glad that Jim was so bad- 
tempered. The evening before and the beginning of the 
night had been rather alarming ; now it was evident 
that he would probably get well very quickly. 

The street in which the Little House stood was as 
quiet as only a street can be that is situated between 
two main arteries ; and Kissy, hurrying to obey Jim’s 
preconvalescent exigencies, was not astonished at the 
Britishly Sabbatarian calm which pervaded it this week- 
day morning. 

But on the broad open Avenue Louise she paused 
instinctively, even as the pointer pauses with inquiring 
ears and unquiet nostrils. 

The silence was oppressive, and its unusualness was 
intensified by the occasional rising and diminishing 
rumble of the trams that passed astonishingly empty 
up and down the deserted avenue, veering with nerve- 
jarring scroop of steel on steel round the abrupt curve 
that leads to the terminus. 

Where were the speeding S.M. automobiles, the ant- 
like boy-scouts, the postman, the telegraph-boy, the 
butcher, the baker, the milkman, the traffic of bicycles, 
carts, and vans ? Even the humble pedestrian was 
missing. The houses with drawn, blank blinds seemed 
still asleep. Had not the serenely shining sun, and the 
municipal clock outside the municipal police-station, 
proclaimed the hour, one might have thought that the 
town was wrapped in the tranquillity of night — and 
where, where in the name of Heaven, were the soldiers 
of the civic-guard who at eight o’clock the evening 
before had finished burrowing out some absurd trenches 
opposite the entrance of the wood, and had camped 
very excitedly and with a great rustling of straw and 


204 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

rattling of accoutrements in the abandoned, broken- 

windowed Cafe des Arcades ? 

Kissy became cold and she shivered in the warm sun- 
shine. There was an uncanny feeling of horror in the 
air. Out of the municipal police-station a municipal 
policeman appeared ; a terrifically small figure in that 
big, sunny, empty space. 

Kissy ran towards him. As she ran her hat fell off 
and she felt no impulsion to pause and pick it up. 

“ What is there, then ? ” she asked him breathlessly ; 
“ where is all the world ? ” 

The man stared back at her out of red-rimmed eyes, 
and sniggered grimly, then with a sweeping gesture of 
his arm, which included the city, the wood, the remote 
horizons, and came to rest with a despairing thud against 
his thigh, he spoke : 

“ They are here.” 

“ Who ? ... Pas les Bodies ! ” 

“ But yes,” he assured her, and repeated again the 
painful grimacing laugh. 

“ But the papers said ...” 

With a scornful shrug the man absently scuffled a 
little mound of dust together, and then carefully kicked 
it into the abandoned trench. 

“ But . . .” began Kissy again. . . . 

“ It is like that!” said the man. “What would you 
that I should say to you, me ? ” 

The whine of the tram-wheels on the curving track 
shrilled and died away. 

A black-and-white puppy nosing an abandoned 
garbage-tin sat down abruptly, and after a swift contor- 
tion began to scratch itself with a thudding hind-paw. 
Then out of the dark shadow of the wood rode three 
figures on horseback. 

Grey, dusty, soiled, and battered. They reminded 
Kissy incredibly of certain leaden soldiers that had 


THE WARM HEARTHSTONE 205 

belonged to her childhood. Toy images from which the 
paint had been chipped and worn. 

So these were the famous Uhlans ? Little, middle- 
sized, nondescript men when they ought to have been 
flaxen giants. 

Funny ! Only it wasn’t really funny ! 

The horses shambled along, and one of them stumbled 
unchecked. Abreast of Kissy and the policeman the 
trio halted and stared, with the anxious, politely inquir- 
ing stare of the stranger who wishes to ask his way. 

It was difficult to believe that it was men like these 
. . . possibly even these three themselves . . . who 
had ... at Vise . . . Kissy glanced at the gleaming 
head of their lances and thought “Blood does rust, 
doesn’t it ? ” and then “ How silly ! of course, they clean 
them afterwards.” Next she found herself wondering 
whether they used sand-paper or Faineuf Polish to 
obtain that burnished point of light which flamed in 
the sunshine. 

The puppy ceasing to scratch and, capriciously 
abandoning its delicious investigation of the garbage- 
tin, padded with clumsy confidence across the Place . 
Suddenly a few yards off, it smelt the soldiers, and 
stopped dead, its wet black truffle of a nose working 
anxiously. The unexpected check made it wobble 
absurdly on its uncertain little legs, but on the back of 
its neck rose a defiant protesting ruff of wiry white hair, 
and it was with an unmistakable growl, and not a mere 
puppy squeak, that it welcomed the intruders. 

Kissy moved quickly forwards and snatched it up as 
one would snatch up a child that is playing on the track 
over which an express train is about to pass ; then she 
returned to her old position as if it was imperative that, 
so long as the Uhlans paused there, she should not 
budge from the spot. 

The puppy, having broad-minded and catholic tastes, 


206 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

licked Kissy’s neck as affectionately as it had just been 
licking an empty sardine-box, but all the time it stared, 
with a grave, sidelong, Aldin look, that showed the 
comical whites of its eyes, at the Uhlans, its tail gently 
thumping against Kissy’s breast, though its ruff still 
bristled under her fingers. 

One of the Uhlans smiled self-consciously and spoke. 

“ SHI vous plait , la Gran’t Place ? ” he asked, but his 
smile was received with a stare of cold enmity and his 
question with hostile silence. 

Twice he repeated his inquiry while his comrades 
made gutteral exclamations in the background, and 
twice he obtained the same result. His smile vanished, 
and weary indifference settled over his dust -caked 
countenance. He shrugged his shoulders, and speaking 
curtly to his men gathered up his bridle and urged his 
horse forwards. One of them obeyed immediately, but 
the second paused irresolutely, shaking a filthy fist in 
the Belgian’s impassive face, then in tardy obedience 
to a more peremptory summons he, too, goaded on his 
dozing horse and followed the others down the Avenue 
towards the town. 

Kissy and the policeman stared at their grey, retreat- 
ing backs, and the policeman spat with fine amplitude 
into the useless trench over which the tired horses had 
scornfully stepped, not caring to waste a jump. “ Go 
away,” he said to Kissy, “ rest in the house. Those 
that need not should not go out to-day.” 

And Kissy, who had not known that she was crying, 
suddenly discovered that tears were running down her 
cheeks and dripping on to the puppy’s coat, passively 
turned and went. 

Ill 

41 Hello, Whiskers ! ” said Jim with benevolent tolera- 
tion as Kissy dropped the puppy into the bed, “ where 


THE WARM HEARTHSTONE 207 

do you come from ? ” But without waiting for the 
answer he continued impatiently, “ Got the papers ? ” 

Kissy, who had found the morning paper in the letter- 
box on her return, held it out, unfolded, so that Jim 
could see the headlines. 

“ All danger of a German advance on Brussels defi- 
nitely averted,” he read. 

“ The forts of Liege ! . . . hold the paper still, dear, 
it’s wobbling so that I can hardly read. Why . . . ? 
But you’re trembling ! What’s the matter ? ” Then 
Jim looked squarely into Kissy ’s eyes and read them 
more clearly than the printed type. “ Take the damned 
rag away,” he said grimly, “ and tell me.” 

And Kissy, being a bom nurse instead of a trained 
one, blurted out the truth instead of letting it out in 
exasperating driblets. 

“ Oh, my dear,” she said, “ my dearest dear ! They 
are here. I’ve seen them ! ” and dropping on her knees 
by the bed she buried her face in the covers. 

There was a long silence broken only by the occasional 
squeaks of the puppy, who had dropped sprawlingly 
asleep on the foot of the bed and was enjoying puppy 
dreams. 

“ They’re here, are they,” growled Jim at last ; “ well, 
I guess they won’t be here long , that’s all.” He was 
thinking, of course, of the speedy arrival of the Allies 
to the rescue, but to Kissy it sounded comfortingly, as 
if Jim himself would be responsible for that departure. 

Then Jim remembered something. 

“ But, you say you’ve seen them ! What d’you mean ? ” 

Kissy told him quickly, and while she spoke Jim’s 
face whitened and lined more than his physical state 
warranted. 

“ My God, and it was I who sent you out for news ! 
Oh, Kissy, Kissy ! ” There were little drops of moisture 
on his temples. 


208 


THE BROKEN LAUGH 

“ Don’t be silly,” said Kissy, “ you couldn’t know I 
Besides there was no danger ! ” 

“ One never knows with those fellows ... though, 
of course, this is the capital — the presence of the foreign 
Ministers may hold them in check. But you mustn’t 
go out alone again, Bunny, remember ; in fact, you 
mustn’t go out at all till we know how things are in the 
city. No, no ! Not even to the shops. Charlotte must 
do all that herself. Promise now ” 

“ Promise ! ” 

“ Good 1 ” There was a rattle of china outside and 
a knock at the door. “ Hurrah, here’s breakfast. I’m 
so thirsty. No, not hungry, besides I hate slops, and 
I suppose I’m in for slops now. What can I have to 
drink ? More Vichy water and milk ! Oh, Lord, how 
filthy ! Can’t I have a whisky -and-soda or a pint of 
Heidsieck or — ” then he broke off and giggled weakly 
at Kissy ’s face, “ I’m only gassing, old lady, don’t drop 
the tray on me for the love of my arm ! ” 

Kissy smiled back with wet eyes. 

“ Are you really laughing ? ” she asked. 

“ ’Course I am.” 

“ Then they really will go soon ? ” 

“ Certain sure.” 

“ You’re not saying it just to make me happy ? ” 

“ ’Course I’m not ! ” 

Kissy set down the tray and bent over the bed. The 
audible and subsequent remark Jim made was : 

“ Do you think you could shave me, or must we get 
a barber in ? ” But Kissy left the question unanswered, 
she was already drowning in another wave of appre- 
hension. 

“ They can’t make you a prisoner, can they ? ” 

“ Good Heavens, no ! Vm not a soldier ! ” The 
emphatic assurance rang in Kissy’s ears, stifling the 
regretful note of the second half of the phrase, and 


THE WARM HEARTHSTONE 209 

thoroughly tranquillized she mopped up her last tears 
and smiled frankly over the scrap of linen with which 
she was dabbing her nose. 

“ As long as I’ve got you I don’t much mind what 
happens,” she said with calm egoism as she turned to 
mix the proper dosage of milk and Vichy. 

For the first time Jim felt the faint drag of the chains 
that he had till then unconsciously hugged. It startled 
and disquieted him, he felt guilty to Kissy and guilty 
to his manhood. Also he felt ashamed of having to feel 
guilty at all. 

He impatiently kicked his legs under the covers. Had 
he been up and well he would probably have knocked 
over and smashed something. 

The sudden movement woke the puppy. 

Just as he would have welcomed the diversion and 
turned with relief to repair the damage he might have 
done in good health he turned gratefully to the topic 
of the puppy. 

“ By the way, where did you find this little chap ? ” 
he asked, as the puppy began to worry his toes in a 
friendly manner through the blanket. 

“ Oh,” answered Kissy, in the particularly grave 
manner a woman puts on before making what she con- 
siders to b$ a particularly humorous rejoinder, “ I forgot 
to tell you. ... I swapped him for my hat ! ” 

IV 

An era of mournful Sundays commenced in Brussels ; 
no newspapers appeared, most of the shops and the 
factories, all the theatres and cinematograph palaces 
were closed, and private houses kept their shutters 
drawn. The boy -scouts, their mothers having hid their 
uniforms, dropped their heroic air and became school- 
boys once more. Those of the civic guard who were not 
evacuated in dme burnt their tunics, threw their rifles 

o 


210 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

into the ponds, and resuming bourgeois and workaday 
attire moved through life embittered by the gibes of 
their neighbours. 

The post offices were shut, and postmen disappeared, 
since no letters or telegrams were allowed to leave or 
enter the city. The tram service was curtailed and 
ceased running altogether at nine o’clock when the 
curfew rang and the wine-shops were closed. The people 
of Brussels lived through the days with taut, stretched 
nerves, listening . . . listening. The silence of the 
streets 46 up-town ” became mournfully oppressive, while 
44 down -town ” the traffic only served to remind the 
citizens more clearly of the horror that was in their 
midst. 

A black, white, and red thing floated in the Grand* 
Place, and grey-clad, guttural strangers cooked their 
soup in open-air kitchens in the shadow of the H6tel 
de Ville. 

The speeding automobiles, now laden with arrogant 
Junkers, still sped chuggingly through the city. Patrols 
of helmeted aliens tramped through the streets, their 
very tread, unfamiliar and hostile, maintaining hatred 
at fever-point in the hearts of those who listened behind 
drawn blinds, or watched with scornful eyes. 

The weather was insolently beautiful, and the sun 
shone with traitorous graciousness on the invaders. For 
days and nights following the occupation of Brussels 
human rivers surged through the city, flowing greyly 
from the east, an ebbless, rising tide that crept onwards 
and onwards ceaselessly. 

Marching wearily they passed in heavy boots that 
creased clumsily at the ankles and bulged over sagging 
trouser-legs, sunburnt and dusty, with shaved heads 
and ragged moustaches. Mouse-coloured men where 
one expected blonde pink-cheeked giants. Sullen and 
hang-dog where one looked for braggart enthusiasm. 


THE WARM HEARTHSTONE 211 

The forts of Li6ge seemed to have written doubt and 
horror on their anxious faces, also they looked hungry. 
A branching stream of the main flood passed through 
the avenue in front of the Little House ; and Kissy, with 
grave interest, watched between a chink in the shutters, 
while Jim lay in white-lipped silence listening in the 
inner room. 

Infantry, cavalry, artillery, ambulance corps, com- 
missariat wagons, field-kitchens, nondescript vehicles, 
automobiles, and push-carts passed in apparently care- 
less disorder. A Rolls-Royce snorted impatiently behind 
a one-man wheelbarrow piled high with stained uniforms 
and spilikin bundles of rifles. A stolen peasant-cart, 
on the yellow-canvas cover of which stood out, in rusty 
red, the impress of a little hand, was hitched to a spick- 
and-span grey ambulance-wagon. Musty station-cabs 
carried officers, and a governess-cart, neat and empty, 
dragged by a little donkey, was led, like a plaything, by a 
weary soldier, who limped as he went. There were bicycles 
and motor-cycles, and a captured Belgian mitrailleuse 
drawn by shaggy sheep-dogs, whose pathetic eyes and 
attentive ears seemed to be searching and listening. . . . 

The men tramped wretchedly and as if weighted with 
slumbering grievances, but the officers, smart, slashed, 
and arrogant, stiffly upheld the spirit of their caste. 
Some were tall, thin, corseted, monocled, blue-eyed 
creatures, who went to war in white-gloved immaculate- 
ness, and these chilled Kissy even more than the gloomy 
menace of the dark cannons that rumbled so thun- 
derously over the paving-stones. There seemed to be 
an infinite capacity for relentless cruelty in their square- 
jawed slimness. 

There were fat fellows, too, bulging like Hansi’s carica- 
tures in their light uniforms, with quivering gelatinous 
cheeks and paunches that festooned over their belts with 
gargantuan obscenity. 


212 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

There were soldiers who gnawed raw lumps of smoked 
lard as they passed by. A few of those who rode on the 
gun-carriages were lashed into their seats with ropes, 
for they were very drunk, and at times they became 
horridly and unashamedly sick. 

On they passed ; on and on. The streets rang with 
them, stank with them ; and when a halt was called 
they invaded the cafes, demanded buckets of water from 
private houses ; linen bandages for their hateful feet. . . 

The bitterness of it was that they were so confident 
that they would be given what they demanded. Part 
of the horror lay in their tranquil belief that they had 
the right to be there. 

V 

When at last the streets emptied and the echoes of 
the tramping feet had passed away, Brussels awoke to 
the fact of its utter isolation and to a newsless condition 
that became almost unbearable. 

The invading authorities issued proclamations, and 
placarded the walls with bulletins that shrieked of 
Prussian victories ; but with dogged determination 
Brussels averted its eyes and refused to believe. Firmly 
the conviction held that any minute now the Allies 
would arrive and drub the Germans back over their 
frontier ; or, at least, if they didn’t come quite this 
very minute they would come in a day or two, next 
week perhaps . . . next month at the very latest. 

Rumour-news contradicted each item of Prussian 
news. Patriotic hearthrug strategists evolved theories 
across the breakfast-table, which went forth in the course 
of the day and were returned to them at night crystallized 
into facts. And it was the women who were the most 
doctoral. A man would say, “ I imagine,” “ I believe,” 
“ It seems to me ” ; but a woman would say, “ It is 
so ! ” 


THE WARM HEARTHSTONE 213 

While the Prussians sacked Louvain and shelled 
Malines Cathedral, the sounds of the fighting were inter- 
preted as the cannons of the French coming to the 
rescue. 

Namur was declared impregnable ; and after maintain- 
ing that hopeless theory for nearly a week after the 
Germans had entered the city, Brussels found infinite 
and various excuses for its evacuation. 

It was the same for Dinant and Antwerp, and during 
the weary silent days while the Allies retreated and 
retreated and retreated. The trustfulness with which 
Brussels waited was incredible and pathetic. The people 
clung steadfastly to the unchangeable facts that in a 
first mad surge the French had entered Alsace, and that 
in Belgium itself the mightiest army history has ever 
seen was forced to ask for an armistice in order to bury 
its dead before the forts of Li£ge. 

“ If we did that,” was the ingenuous cry, “ what will 
the Allies do ? ” 

And then one day, very suddenly, nobody will ever 
quite know how, came the story of the Battle of the 
Marne. 

It was received with a double sentiment of pride and 
horror. 

“ Bien stir, one knew well that they would never get 
to Paris,” was the smiling boast ; but behind closed doors 
echoed the shocked whisper : “ Mon Dieu , to think how 
near they were ! ” 

It seemed after this as if Brussels had been waiting 
for the news of that first definite victory to settle down 
with steadfast patience to her captivity. 

She knew now that the Allies would not free her this 
week, nor the next, nor perhaps for many months. She 
had already tasted hunger, fear, and anxiety. She knew 
something and guessed more of the tyrannic injustice 
of Prussian rule. Her flag had been insulted, her coffers 


214 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

rifled, her citizens imprisoned, but she had believed 
firmly that sooner or later help would come from without, 
and when she discovered that only later — much later — 
would that help arrive, Brussels defiantly resolved to 
stand alone. And then, crippled but defiant, with 
Mayor Max as spokesman, the city fought, with stubborn 
resistance, against the German rule, grimly writing a 
page of municipal history as heroic as many a battlefield 
has been. 

VI 

Jim rose from his bed and went out within a fortnight 
of his return to the Little House. Shaky and pale, his 
arm in a sling, he assisted with Kissy, from the top of 
a brick-kiln near the suburban village of Evere, at the 
attack of Mecklin, of Waelhem, and of Antwerp. 

From the brick-kiln they could see the twin spires of 
Mecklin Cathedral enveloped in a grey haze, a grey 
haze slashed with star-dust flecks of yellow fire, and 
dappled continuously with cotton-white puff-balls of 
smoke that slowly dissolved into the neutral-tinted fog. 
In the foreground, rising in the clearer atmosphere, a 
captive balloon of intense indecency floated tremulously 
at the end of its tether. The earth quaked and shook 
to the heavy rhythm of artillery, the air vibrated, and 
waves of sound became a tangible reality. 

Closer yet, some Flemish peasants toiled, bent-backed, 
in the fields, leisurely digging potatoes with careless 
unconcern. 

Day after day, till the end came and silence descended 
on the ruins, found Jim at the same post, Kissy, faith- 
fully and silently, in his shadow— even when the golden 
September weather broke, and rain poured relentlessly, 
and the smoke puff-balls gleamed whiter than ever 
against the dark sky. 

It was a useless and heart-breaking pilgrimage, but 


THE WARM HEARTHSTONE 215 

Jim’s angry restlessness, which made life unbearable to 
him, urged him there, to be within sight and sound of 
the world’s conflict. Though to listen quietly, while men 
fought and died within a small half-dozen miles, was 
hell. It was hell also to watch the misery in Kissy’s 
eyes when he voiced these sentiments. It was all very 
well for her to stiffen her face and say bravely : “ You 
must do as you want as soon as you are well enough,” 
but in her eyes crept the agonized dumb look of the 
stray dog that you have carelessly patted on the head, 
the forlorn mongrel who knows it is useless to try to 
follow, and who squats on its haunches with slowly 
thumping tail and watches with mournful eyes as you 
pass by on your way. 

Jim knew that as soon as his arm and shoulder would 
let him he would somehow manage to go to the Front, 
but in the meantime. . . . 

Kissy knew that if Jim left her, life would be torture ; 
but in the meantime. . . . 

Both took refuge in the verdict of the doctor. The 
fractured forearm was mending well, but the complete 
healing of the bullet-torn shoulder was a more proble- 
matic affair . . . tendons had been lacerated, and local 
paralysis was temporarily possible. 

“ Pragod, let it last a long, long time, but don’t let 
it hurt him,” prayed Kissy ; and it seemed as if the God 
who had been worsted by Aunt Liz in that childhood 
affair of the brown shoes and stockings was now getting 
a little of His own back, for the shoulder remained dis- 
tinctly unsatisfactory, and in reply to Jim’s urgent cross- 
examination the doctor spoke evasively of the healing 
properties of rest and time and a course of electric 
treatment. 

To Kissy the war and the German occupation of 
Brussels were secondary matters now that Jim was 
safely home in the Little House. It was a nuisance, of 


216 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

course, that food was getting so expensive, and horrid to 
be without newspapers — the “ Tatler ” and the English 
magazines especially; but with a little patience and 
discernment one could still market fairly reasonably, 
and a very good circulating library was discovered down- 
town. Walks were curtailed round the city. Trams 
no longer ran out to the picturesque suburbs. The 
Foret de Soignes was out of bounds, but there remained 
all the wood to stroll in, and one could tramp for miles 
by the exterior boulevards past the Etterbeek barracks 
and the aviation ground, where now a Zeppelin was 
housed, out to Schaerbeek, where there was always some- 
thing new happening and where you often saw slow- 
crawling trainloads of prisoners pass whom you bom- 
barded with packets of cigarettes and parcels of sand- 
wiches at the level-crossing when the sentries’ backs 
were turned. Besides how could Kissy be very unhappy 
when Jim was at home every day and all the day. 

But to Jim war was . . . what it is. Also he recog- 
nized speedily that the Allies were fighting not only in 
self-defence, not in a spirit of conquest, but for the 
ultimate suppression of that bugbear militarism, and for 
the liberty of mankind which Prussia would have reduced 
to slavery ; and he fretted over and chaffed bitterly at 
his inaction and his uselessness. 

There was nothing he could do. The Red Cross of 
Belgium continued to work in Brussels for the Belgian 
soldiers, but as an Englishman Jim was debarred by 
the German authorities from resuming his service, even 
had he been able to do so. 

At the timber-yard work had almost stopped ; small 
orders that had been in hand for city contractors were 
being slowly carried out by a reduced staff. 

There were financial worries, too, to top Jim’s trouble. 
The capital he had paid out on the Soderstrom was 
immobilized, and for the time being as good as lost ; 


THE WARM HEARTHSTONE 217 

certain contracts with the provinces so much waste 
paper. In July he had settled several big accounts for 
the momentarily inutilizable stock that actually crowded 
his premises ; and now each week after he had paid the 
usual and full salaries to the men who remained with 
him and to the wives or mothers of those who had 
joined the Army, a proceeding that Degrief viciously 
denounced as blameably quixotic : the margin left over 
was excessively narrow, and by degrees Kissy incredu- 
lously discovered that Jim was, after all, capable of not 
only submitting to, but actually organizing, certain 
economies. 

Kissy was just then tremendously, if egotistically, 
happy. She had no idea, of course, that she was ego- 
tistic, and in her happiness she unconsciously hit upon 
exactly the right thing to say to Jim. 

“ Why,” she asked one Saturday evening, sitting with 
Jim over the tubby Belgian stove that was roaring cosily, 
pulled out into the middle of the fender — they had been 
planning the possible expenditure for the coming week — 
“ why shouldn’t we try to get over the border to Holland 
just as soon as ever your arm is well enough ? You 
could leave Degrief in charge here and we’d get over to 
England. It would be nice to see London again, wouldn’t 
it?” 

Jim hugged Kissy with his sound arm, and his voice 
was loud with relief and elation. 

“ God — it would be good, why didn’t I think of it 
before, but it’ll mean risks and tramping, though you 
won’t mind that, and I’ll take care of the risks. Oh, 
my dearest dear, think, we’ll be able to be married, and 
then , then I’ll be able to do . . . what I ought to 
do ” 

Kissy’s hand trembled as she carefully turned some 
chestnuts that were roasting on the flat lid of the stove. 

“ Must you ? ” she whispered. 


218 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

But Jim, who did not hear, continued exultantly, 
“ and then when the war’s over we’ll set the old Soder- 
strom to work to bring in the shekels so that we can 
have pretty frocks and do-dabs for you, horses and 
Havanas for me, and babies for both of us, and we’ll 
live happy -ever-af ter- Amen ! Oh, Kissy, what a heavenly 
fairy tale, and all the better because it’s not a fairy tale 
at all, but the truth.” 

Kissy nodded and tried to laugh, and Jim believed her 
when she said that the tears in her eyes were brought 
there by the pain from the hot chestnut which had 
burnt her. He did not even notice that her mouth 
was empty and the chestnuts on the stove were un- 
touched. 


CHAPTER VII 
He Travels Fastest 
I 

Jim and Kissy decided to try and leave Brussels in 
September, but May arrived before they were able to 
execute their plan. It was the wounded shoulder that 
so retarded them, and Kissy was duly grateful to 
Pragod. 

Those winter months were the happiest of Kissy’s and 
Jim’s life together. A quiet, serene happiness shadowed 
only by the thought of the heart-breaking separation 
that was ahead, but even that shadow became unreal 
in the absolute quietude of the present moment. Kissy 
was also becoming resigned to the inevitable, possibly 
her resignation was helped by the lurking thought that 
the war could not last “ for ever,” and that by the time 
they reached England there would perhaps no longer 
be any necessity for Jim to love honour more than 
herself. 

How Kissy hated that cant sentiment in her passionate 
egoism. She admitted its truth, but vehemently re- 
sented its expression. 

It was not through Jim, but in a book — borrowed from 
the Lecture Universelle , and returned later, somewhat 
damaged — that Kissy first made the acquaintance of 
those hackneyed lines, and somehow they conjured up 
in her imagination the picture of a bushy whiskered man 
in a red coat, riding a pink-nostrilled, piebald horse, 
while an Early-Victorian lady in a crinoline waved tear- 
fully from a rose-embowered window. This picture was 
219 


220 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

curiously mixed up — as if two negatives had been photo- 
graphed on the same plate — with that of a middle-class 
English family wearing black kid gloves stitched with 
white thread, and eating seed cake before a funeral. 

“ Swank,” she said furiously, as she threw the book 
across the room, “ beastly, canting swank ! Fancy talk - 
ing like that ! ” 

Jim never talked. 

After that one allusion on the evening of the roast 
chestnuts he had never mentioned the matter again, 
which did not, on the other hand, prevent Kissy from 
knowing that he thought of it continuously. 

It was impossible for a man of his age and physical 
strength to do otherwise, and Kissy with unconscious 
philosophy was grateful that in his eagerness to be up 
and doing he still found time to be torn at the idea of 
leaving her, there were so many men who would have 
gone without a backward look. 

He had been unbearably restless and worried during 
the newsless period before the Battle of the Marne, and 
before the decision to leave Brussels was taken. But 
during the months of convalescence and waiting he 
regained his normal spirits and again became the even- 
tempered young-hearted man of the pre-war days in the 
Little House. He made plans and day-dreamed aloud. 
With Kissy’s help he designed a wonderful country- 
house in which they were to live as soon as the war was 
over and the “ Soderstrom ” began to make the huge 
returns that were expected of it. 

A whole floor of this dream-house was devoted to 
nurseries. Day nurseries, night nurseries, an immense 
bathroom with a little swimming-tank — they’d be able 
to sail their boats in it, too, you know — a sun-bright 
schoolroom and a white-tiled kitchen where delightful 
child food, milk puddings that were milk puddings and 
not yellow watery messes of grease and pap, firm- 


HE TRAVELS FASTEST 221 

fleshed fish and tender birds would be daintily and 
hygienically prepared by a white-frocked bonne with 
irreproachable nails. 

They decided that the first baby would be a boy, he 
was to have brown hair and blue eyes like Jim, and he 
would be called Jack ; the second one would be fair 
and have Kissy’s eyes, and Denise was rather a nice 
name, wasn’t it ? 

Then Kissy suggested that if only they could have 
twins, boy-and-girl twins, it would save a lot of time. 
Jim professed to be enormously shocked. 

“ But we’ll never, never, never take them to moving- 
picture shows,” they both most solemnly vowed. 

“ And if ever we find one of the nurses taking 
them . . .” began Kissy — “ one ” of the nurses, how 
rich it sounded 1 

“. . . Out she goes the very same day with a month’s 
wages — just like the Degriefs’ servants,” finished Jim 
in stern tones, which sounded tremendously in earnest. 

Jim mentioned polo, and so they planned some 
extremely satisfactory stables, and Jim picked out 
several thoroughbred hunters for Kissy ; also there was 
to be a certain little Arab horse that she would ride at 
the Paris horseshow, and for which she would be awarded 
the gold ribbon. 

It was after this that Kissy made the suggestion about 
twins to save time. 

Life was going to be very gorgeous — after the war. 
But in the meantime, when they were not day-dreaming, 
the war and news of the war were the topics that were 
of inexhaustible interest to Jim. To Kissy it was a 
hprrible, unnecessary, and utterly incomprehensible 
affair. It seemed incredible to her that the madness of 
one human being could cause the slaughter of millions 
of men, and while Jim pored in utter absorption over 
the contraband Times , Matin , or Temps , that were 


222 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

smuggled into the city and sold or loaned for fabulous 
sums, ranging from five francs to a hundred, she listened 
with downcast eyes to his angry or admirative com- 
ments, went on with her sewing and tried hard to 
remember whether occidental was east or west, and 
wondered how on earth it could be that Russia somewhere 
joined on to Persia, since Russia was the same thing as 
Siberia or snow-bound steppes, while Asia Minor meant 
figs and dates and oranges and — well, no, Kissy wasn’t 
quite certain if bananas grew there, although they cer- 
tainly looked as if they might. 

The fluctuations of the Russian front were also very 
perplexing. “ It’s like a silly tug-of-war,” thought 
Kissy. For a long time also she was undecided whether 
Poland was a country of its own, or whether it was 
German or Russian ; and several months passed before 
Jim discovered that for Kissy, St. Petersburg and Petro- 
grad were two utterly different cities. 

For a while it was an exciting task to peg out, with 
little red stamp-paper flags, the line of the German 
retreat in France, but when “ everybody got stuck,” 
and day after day the same line stubbornly held with 
nothing but a thriftless exchange of ammunition and 
a daily toll of lives, Kissy lost all interest in that front, 
too, and found Jim’s absorption incomprehensible. 

When money was so tight, and even Jim thought 
twice before he lit a Corona Corona or took Kissy out 
to luncheon in one of the little expensive restaurants of 
Brussels, and refused to order a new “ half-season ” 
overcoat, it seemed a wicked waste to pay twenty or 
thirty francs just to learn that artillery duels were taking 
place along the unchangeable front — “ our ” front — in 
France, and to read gory details of passed battles that 
made Jim’s desire to avenge Him outrages seem trouble- 
somely righteous. 

It was all very well for Jim to read out long articles 


HE TRAVELS FASTEST 223 

and say with a sort of moral genuflection, “ That's 
Repington’s opinion. . . .” Kissy didn’t care two pins 
for anybody’s opinion so long as the little red flags 
rusted in the map, and Bethmann continued his bom- 
bastic speeches in the Reichstag. 

What Kissy wanted was that Tommy Atkins should 
go and hold a smoking-concert in the throne-room at Pots- 
dam, and that the German people should thereby learn 
the truth about that Kaiser of theirs. There was, 
in Kissy’s opinion, too much talking and not enough 
fighting ; it was with the greatest difficulty that Jim 
got her to realize that victory was not a goal that was 
attained solely by picturesque warriors charging at the 
head of gleaming cuirassiers . Ultimately Kissy came 
to realize that war was no longer a twenty-foot Detaille 
picture. Her next conception was that its foundations 
rested more firmly on munition factories, which in turn 
seemed greatly to depend on a lot of old gentlemen who 
passed their days sitting round green baize-covered 
tables, than on the heroes of the trenches. 

“ Then war’s just a muddle of politics and commerce,” 
she said disgustedly. “ Won’t we ever fight them ? ” 

“ That’s what we’re doing every day.” 

“ But I mean really fight, so as to lick them, you 
know, make them run ! ” 

“ Of course we shall — when we’re ready.” 

“ That means when politics and commerce are ready, 
I suppose. And it’ll take months and months and 
months, and while we’re waiting every day there are 
people being killed, and when they do fight, really, 
there’ll be hundreds and millions more — just because of 
that beast who started it all ! What’s the good of being 
superior animals, and civilized and all that, if it means 
that people are silly enough to let one man, or even a 
bunch of ’em, start a thing like this, eh ! Nobody really 
wants to fight and be killed except those who’ll not have 


224 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

to ! The war ’ud be finished now if he'd been in the 
trenches himself. Oh, it’s silly, it’s silly, it’s ” 

“ It’s damnable,” finished Jim, “ but we’ve got to see 
it through ! ” 

“ Why ? ” asked Kissy, with the doubting aggressive- 
ness of the half-baked Socialist. 

Jim made a vague shrugging gesture. “ Self-respect 
now?,” he said ; “ besides, we must teach the universe 
that such things can’t, mustn't happen again. We owe 
it to those who will come after us. It’s not only for 
our liberty that we’re fighting, dear.” 

“ Ah,” said Kissy slowly, “ of course, I’d forgotten 
. . . the babies ! I’m always talking about them, and 
yet I go and forget them when they’re mixed up in an 
important thing like this. Really, I’m an awf’ly stupid 
sort of a thing.” 

II 

Although the exploitation of the “ Soderstrom ” still 
remained in abeyance, business at the timber-yard 
increased as time went by — a fact for which Jim was 
properly grateful. 

As before, Degrief merely played at his job, and on 
the slightest pretext would remain for days without 
setting foot in the office or the yard. 

He was an excessively noisy and ostentatious patriot, 
teaching his children to allude to the Germans as sales 
Boches, wearing a large tricolour bow in his button- 
hole, and replacing that badge by the clinging ivy-leaf 
when the alien authorities, with futile rage, forbade any 
further flaunting of the national colours. He would 
cross the street rather than pass near a German officer, 
walk rather than take a tram on which there were 
German soldiers — he did a good deal of walking that 
winter ; tear down the German proclamations and haunt 
cafis and street-comer conferences in order to import- 


HE TRAVELS FASTEST 225 

antly repeat the Repington opinions and the Eye-Wit- 
ness ” descriptions that he gleaned from Jim for that pur- 
pose. This was what he called “ making a propaganda.” 

Kissy at that time came to hate him with a violent 
and absolute detestation. 

Avariciously she treasured every fleeting moment of 
her life with Jim. Even the long winter evenings and 
nights were all too short to content her passionate desire 
of a solitude a deux. When work at the yard occupied 
him again — meals which were now almost invariably 
taken at home — became, as before the war, moments of 
intense delight to Kissy. Jim liked nice things, and 
Kissy would, unknown to him, tramp the city in order 
to achieve, at reasonable prices, certain delicacies and 
favourite dishes that would please him. It was her 
greatest reward to see him return to a dish for a second 
helping, to hear him praise the cooking she had so care- 
fully planned and Charlotte had so perfectly executed, 
and to sit quietly, in an after-dinner mood, by him in 
the big couch-chair near the fire, sipping coffee made in 
the Turkish fashion, but minus the grounds, after which 
Jim would prove that a good cigar and love-making 
are not incompatible. 

Then noisily, self-assured, indiscreet, questing for 
news, Degrief would arrive. There would be a loud 
double peal at the bell, a confident voice proclaiming, 

4 4 They’re in, I can see the light,” a clatter in the 
umbrella-stand, the rustling scrape of boots on the mat, 
and Kissy, with black anger in her eyes, would bury 
herself in another chair, and Jim would say, “ Oh, 
damn,” under his breath. 

While Degrief entered Kissy would watch him with 
increasing exasperation. She hated his good-humoured 
greeting, his “ If I am in the way, say so oh, to have 
the courage to say “ You are ’’—the way he dived, un- 
invited, into the "cigar-box, appropriating the armchair 


226 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

he preferred and dragged it unceremoniously across the 
carpet, leaving long white scratches in the thick pile. 
His complacent statement, “ My wife will be round as 
soon as she’s put the children to bed, she’s just finished 
washing-up,” and the way he thumped Jim on the back 
with a “ Well, my old one, and what news now ? ” 

Sometimes, on the rare days when he went to the 
office, he would even arrive after breakfast and start off 
with Jim. Frequently he “ looked in ” after lunch to 
visit the cigar-box and explain off-handedly that his wife 
needed him to take the children for a walk as she herself 
was too busy, and, pet exasperation of all, often in the 
evening he would arrive even before Jim and Kissy had 
finished dinner. 

Then he would draw a chair up to the table, rub his 
hands while he coarsely sniffed, and cry, “ Say then, 
my friends, but it smells furiously good what you have 
there,” and Kissy would have to tell Fina to lay a cover 
for him, smiling amiably all the while, though her 
scornful thought was, “ He lives in his shirt-sleeves that 
man ! ” 

Of course it was neither right nor healthy that these 
trivialities should have so exasperated them, but egoism 
a deux is one of the most easily acquired habits in 
creation. 

They might possibly have snubbed Degrief, or found 
some way of showing him the ill-timedness of his visits, 
only Jim was completely incapable of hurting any one’s 
feelings, and Kissy, although she hated the man, was 
sorry for his wife. 

With the beginning of the war Degrief instituted an 
era of economy, not because it was really necessary for 
them to economize,, but because he found it picturesque 
to declare, “ One must make sacrifices at such times.” 

It was Madame Degrief who bore the brunt of these 
sacrifices, for the dismissal of the domestic drudge in 


HE TRAVELS FASTEST 227 

order to “ save her food ” meant that all the toil the 
girl had ill or partially accomplished would now devolve 
entirely on the mistress of the house. 

And there is more than a little toil to be counted 
with in the maintenance of a ten-room house when the 
washing is “ done in ” once a fortnight, and there are 
three children, one of whom is a most outrageously 
indulged small boy. 

Madame Degrief rose before six in order to dispatch 
the two elder children to school properly fed, washed, 
and dressed, and after their departure at half-past seven 
would wrestle for an hour and a half with Degrief minor, 
who was as obstinate as his father, and who invariably 
found keen pleasure in disagreeing with his mother over 
every phase of the getting-up and breakfast process. 

After which the whole day passed in a kinemato- 
graphic haze of dish-washing, dusting, marketing, and 
cooking ; of wearily complaining of children’s dirty 
shoes that always ignored the mat, of open doors that 
they never closed, of tom pinafores and broken boot- 
laces at inopportune moments, and of explaining to an 
incredulous audience that if economy consists of mar- 
garine instead of double-cream butter, the finest re- 
sources of Walloon cookery cannot hide the difference. 

It must not be imagined that Degrief made these 
sacrifices through any altruistic motives. When charity 
lists and almsboxes were brought to his door he would 
shake his head and explain that when a man has three 
children charity begins at home, yet even now he was 
making more money with Jim than ever he had made 
under the Van Donck regimen. The amount he saved 
by his wife’s dmdgery went to purchase provisions and 
ever more provisions, till the storeroom was crammed 
almost to the ceiling and overflowed into the spare bed- 
room, where little Felix Degrief, discovering that wonder- 
ful houses could be built with corned-beef and sardine 


228 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

tins, played for hours with noisy clatterings and peremp- 
tory shouts to his mother to “ Come and see ” whenever 
a Pisa-like edifice was erected. The spare bedroom was 
at the top of the house, yet up those innumerable stairs 
the devoted woman toiled at every yell. When on 
Saturday nights, after the extra work and worry of the 
children’s weekly hot bath, and the preparation of a 
little particular something for supper, Jeanne Degrief 
would sit down with a sigh of fatigue and mauve circles 
under her eyes, Degrief, who considered domestic slavery 
as every woman’s natural career, would magnanimously 
declare, “ To-morrow I cook the dinner ; one must not 
be selfish and let little mother do all the work.” 

And so, on Sunday, wrapped in a white apron that 
when he had finished with it was only fit for the wash- 
basket, Degrief compounded savoury dishes, for the 
elaboration of which he invariably found it necessary to 
dirty every utensil in the kitchen and more plates than 
little Anna, who sometimes helped her mother to “ wash- 
up,” considered Christian. 

Dinner finished, he would decide to take the children 
for a walk, and having made the most of his astonish- 
ment that his wife could not get them and herself ready 
for the street in ten minutes, would go off alone with the 
children in huffy displeasure. Then Madame Degrief, 
by working hard, would just manage to wash up, tidy 
the kitchen, and make herself presentable in time for 
their return at four o’clock, when at once coffee would 
have to be brewed and the traditional tartines buttered. 

It was a life of nagging and unremitting toil that Jim 
and Kissy watched in helpless indignation. 

When Jim suggested to his partner that Madame 
seemed a little run down, Degrief laughed at the idea. 

44 My wife carries herself like a charm,” he would say, 
44 she is never so happy as when she is working in her 
house.” 


HE TRAVELS FASTEST 229 

And when Kissy suggested that perhaps she was over- 
doing it a little, he would answer : “ But no, but no ! 
She has the habit of it. You should have seen her in 
China ; there we had a garden, a cow, and poultry to 
look after, and she did it all herself.” 

He went on his way in tranquil selfishness, blind to 
Jeanne’s increasing thinness, deaf to a little throaty 
cough, which she declared to Kissy was “ from the 
stomach ” ! and Kissy, anxious and full of pity, could 
do nothing but frequently take charge of the children 
and carry them off for the afternoon while their mother 
energetically served some part of the house with the 
thorough turn-out beloved of the efficient house- wife. 

Ill 

Every morning, after Jim had resumed the daily 
round at the yard, Kissy departed with Whiskers in the 
wood. It was always the same walk. Down the Avenue 
to the entrance of the wood where she had spoken to 
the policeman the morning the Germans arrived, up 
the broad path where, in times of peace, the annual 
Battle of Flowers is waged, round the lake where Cana- 
dian-canoes and pleasure-boats swim in the summer- 
time, and where, on Robinson’s Island, lives the old 
woman with the pigeons that come and eat out of your 
hand the grains from the little paper jpaquet that costs 
two sous — five sous in war time ! 

Then from the lake back by the bridle-path, deserted 
except for occasional German officers, into the Waterloo 
Road and home. 

Always the same walks, always the same time, by 
sunshine, rain, wind, or snow, and Whiskers, growing 
from stumbling puppyhood into mischievous adolescence, 
throve and became a remarkably fine dog. 

He was a rough -haired fox-terrier, with a magnificent 
coat, an entirely white body, and a black-and-tan head. 


230 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

Kissy thought him perfection and told him so. Jim 
told him so, too-— not for worlds would he have hurt 
Whiskers’ feelings — but lurking knowledge cried to him 
that although Whiskers’ body was splendidly planted on 
correctly wooden legs, and the marking was excellent, 
there was something suspiciously wrong about the size 
and carriage of the ears, and in* a rough-haired fox- 
terrier the ears are everything — well ! 

So Jim carefully hid Kissy’s favourite portrait of 
“ Caesar, the King’s dog ” in case Whiskers should come 
across it and, making comparisons, learn the horrid 
truth. 

It was because of Whiskers — at least they pretended 
it was because of him, in order to lighten their conscience 
at each addition — that Jim and Kissy inaugurated weekly 
Sunday luncheons at Groenendael as soon as the German 
authorities extended the bounds of the city. 

Whiskers did so enjoy the forest. 

There were such wonderful scents to be followed up. 
Bunnies and hares and squirrels that sometimes started 
up only a few yards in front of your doggy nose and led 
you an exciting, squeaking, yelping chase before they 
vanished down tiny holes, from which, because your 
absurd mistress was ridiculously nervous of losing you, 
you were unfairly dragged out by the tail, or up trees 
that were so smooth of trunk you always fell back from 
them, even when you had managed to half run, half 
jump, as high as two or three yards up, and into thickets 
so full of brambles and treacherous roots that your poor 
tender pink-and- white muzzle was cruelly scratched and 
torn. 

Once, in the pink -mauve dusk of a fine winter’s after- 
noon, when the snow in the heart of the forest lay white 
in untrampled purity, Jim and Kissy came across a 
group of roes amongst which a fine buck reared its 
splendid head with self-conscious pride. 


HE TRAVELS FASTEST 231 

Whiskers was hunting somewhere in the rear, and Jim 
and Kissy, with the breeze blowing against them, had 
arrived so quietly that the dainty, stately animals were 
absolutely unconscious of their presence. 

It was Jim who spied them first, and gently whispering 
to Kissy pointed them out ; for several seconds they 
stood there silently watching, Jim with the sportsman 
instinctive longing for a gun, Kissy with an absolute 
appreciation of the beauty of the scene. The darkly 
rearing trees against the dazzling snow, the pure trans- 
parency of the shell-tinted sky in which the pale crescent 
of a little new moon shone shyly, the slim-legged gracious 
animals, as dark, in the half-light, as the trees them- 
selves, the intense silence that brooded over the land- 
scape, rendered the picture unreal as a painted canvas. 

Then from a distance came the faint insistent tinkle 
of Whiskers’ bell ; and immediately, with a startled 
rearing and stiffening of arched necks, the band darted 
off with long graceful leaps that left little dark tracks 
in the snow. 

“ Ping ! Got him ! ” cried Jim, as he triumphantly 
lowered his walking-stick. He spoke with such convic- 
tion that Kissy looked fearfully through the trees, almost 
expecting to see a huddled kicking heap on the snow. 
She was a little annoyed when Jim laughed at her. 

Kissy always hated to be teased, one of her rare 
faults was that she was absolutely devoid of a sense of 
humour. ? 

Whiskers’ tinkling bell jingled nearer and nearer, till 
breaking out of the bushes, he passed in a galloping rush, 
scattering a powdered trail of snow. Nose to the ground, 
deaf to Jim’s peremptory 44 Come here, sir,” he tore by, 
hot on the fresh scent that he had just picked up. 

Tacitly ignoring his disobedience, Jim brushed the 
snow off a fallen tree, spread the corner of his coat on 
it, and invited Kissy to sit. 


232 


THE BROKEN LAUGH 

“ Now we’ll have to wait for half an hour till your 
precious dog chooses to come back,” she grumbled with 
vengeful stress on the adjective, but she sat down 
nevertheless, and with immediate appeasement snuggled 
close to Jim’s side. 

“ He’s a naughty little dog, you know, dear,” she 
said, with a little apologetic laugh, “ but he’s a darling 
all the same though,” she added hastily, as if Whiskers 
could hear. 

“ Let’s start training him properly,” said Jim with 
an air of tremendous energy. 

“ Yes, let 9 8 , ” agreed Kissy with matching decision. 
It sounded fine, but had Whiskers heard them he would 
have grinned his lipless, humorous grin . . . they both 
of them entirely lacked conviction. 

While they waited, and Jim occasionally sent a desul- 
tory whistle cutting shrilly through the creeping gloom, 
darkness fell deeper and deeper, and the match Jim lit 
to look at his watch by flamed in the obscurity with the 
bright flare of a tiny beacon. 

Then the young moon, losing its timorous modesty, 
became brighter in the darkening sky till the branches 
overhead were shadowed in tangled grey ness on the 
blue-tinged snow. Whispering, rustling, farewell noises 
broke the silence for a while, and then again the deep 
hush of the forest settled for the night. 

The serene beauty of the scene filled Kissy’s heart 
with the poignant melancholy that haunts the existence 
of those who live much alone. All the bitter-sweet of 
loving surged to the surface, and she turned appealingly 
to Jim ; but the words died on her quivering lips, and 
the tears that brimmed in her eyes welled over and rolled 
slowly in glistening drops down the smooth cheeks that 
were so white in the moonlight. Her hand was despair- 
ingly clenched on the lapel of his coat with the fierce 
grasp of one who is fighting for life. 


233 


HE TRAVELS FASTEST 

Jim, looking down on her, was filled with an immense 
and overwhelming pity, and yet underneath that pity 
lurked a man’s legitimate incomprehension of a woman’s 
irrational revolt over a settled and inevitable matter. 

With strongly tender arms he held her closely while 
he kissed her trembling lips and grief-laden eyes, rocking 
her a little, as one rocks a dearly loved unreasonable 
child. Convulsively Kissy struggled for self-control, 
she knew that she could never voice her sorrow, that 
she had no right to say to him, “ I have no one in the 
world but you, how can you go away and leave me,” 
also she felt, dimly, that she was laying the foundation 
for a grievance in Jim’s heart, and so when he began 
to speak, she closed his lips with the small cold hand 
that had been clenched on his coat. 

“ Hush, my dear,” she said, 14 it’s all right. I’m only 
silly, you know. . . . Ne fais pas attention ! ” She 
giggled nervously. . . . “ It’s the fault of the moon 1 ” 

IV 

In sober, unemotional moments Kiss} was in reality as 
resigned as any passionately loving woman can be to her 
mate’s departure for the dangerous uncertainties of war. 

A visit made in the early days of November to ruined, 
ransacked towns and villages that were reached through 
high roads bordered with narrow, wood-crossed, heroic 
graves, brought about Kissy’s submissive surrender to 
fate. It was impossible to remain egoistically calm in 
the face of those ravaged homesteads, or to fail to realize 
how the whole spirit of a man must strain to take part, 
in no matter how infinitesimal a degree, in the avenging 
reckoning. 

It was not the piteous traces of legitimate warfare that 
so much sickened Kissy during the sorrowful pilgrimage 
to Mechlin as the shrieking proofs of wanton and cynical 
destruction that were encountered everywhere. 


234 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

On the outskirts of the town, where the bombardment 
had not wrought the same havoc as in the centre near 
the church that was so systematically shelled, the houses 
had been broken into and pillaged. Not a door but 
swung with a burst lock or broken panels ; not a window 
but the sill of which w r as strewn with broken glass ; limp 
and sometimes blood-stained curtains trailed raggedly 
behind the empty framework, and through open case- 
ment Kissy could see ransacked cupboards, splintered 
mirrors, muddles of torn and sullied sheets, disembowelled 
mattresses, and quivering stalactites of peeling wall- 
paper. 

The calmness of death brooded over the exterior 
boulevards on which these outraged dwellings stood, and 
Jim and Kissy were alone on the curving, empty 
thoroughfare planted with a double avenue of chestnut 
trees under which so few weeks ago care-free citizens 
had dawdled, and nursemaids had loitered flirtatiously 
while their charges played in the July sunshine. 

Now the trees were naked and cold in the grey Novem- 
ber morning, and a carpet of ash -coloured leaves covered 
the earth. A faint attempt to right things showed itself 
in the frequent heaps of broken wine-bottles ; tidied 
debris which spoke eloquently of the drunken scenes 
that had been enacted. The fragments of smashed 
magnums of champagne shone with a more vivid green 
than the dark hue of the high -shouldered Burgundy 
bottles, or the pale whiteness of the petit vin ordinaire , 
and a bright blotch of orangey vermilion was made by a 
beheaded but half-full bottle of syrupy grenadine. 

Some of the houses were pock-marked with bullets, 
here and there a stray shell had wrecked a roof or tom 
a jagged hole that lay bare the inmost domestic secrets 
of an innocent household. 

Near the church, where the bombardment had con- 
centrated, nothing remained of whole blocks of dwellings 


235 


HE TRAVELS FASTEST 

and shops but powdery piles of bricks. From one of 
those pathetic mounds protruded grimly two stiff black 
childish legs, which caused Kissy to turn pale and press 
more closely to Jim’s side till she discovered that the 
tragic legs belonged to a tailor’s dummy. 

Farther up the street a room, supported by invisible 
means betwixt heaven and earth, jutted miraculousy 
from the back wall of a ruined house into space. 

Nothing was deranged from the spick-and-span cover- 
let on the narrow virginal bed to the shrivelled bouquet 
in the blue-and- white vase th t stood on the mantel- 
piece before the statue of the Holy Mother. Little 
slippers waited on the lower ledge of the night -table, 
and on the foot of the bed lay, neatly folded, a clean 
night-gown. Where the outer wall and part of the floor- 
ing had fallen away, the carpet drooped over the edge 
and hung downwards, its bright hues recalling the naive 
tapestries that southern countries hang over their bal- 
conies on religious fete days. 

Picking their way over the wreckage, and bending to 
pass under trailing telephone wires, Jim and Kissy 
advanced slowly towards the church. They approached 
the building from the side on which the enemy had done 
its malignant worst, and they could see how the body 
of the edifice had suffered, and how, of the beautiful 
windows, nothing remained but the twisted lead-work, 
which was lacily patterned against the sky beyond. 

German sentries guarded the Place and forbade nearer 
approach ; it was forbidden to enter the church. 

Crossing the bridge that spanned the placid waters 
of the canal, where a group of light-hearted gutter 
urchins pelted a half-submerged water-bottle that had 
formed part of some Prussian equipment, Jim and Kissy 
made their way along the high road to the village and 
fort of Waelhem. 

It proved a tremendous disappointment to Kissy. 


236 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

She had expected to see the crenated pile of a Tower of 
London rising from the Flemish landscape. She looked 
for battlements and grim, grey walls, neatly loopholed 
under frowning buttresses, and she found only what 
looked to be a huge mound of yellow sand in which 
great broken slabs and curved surfaces of some lava- 
like material were partially buried. 

On closer approach Kissy found a broad moat and a 
drawbridge, but these details came too late. As a real 
fort it was, and remained, an unsatisfactory memory. 
The yellow heap in its puddle of water was more like 
a giant child’s sand castle than anything else, and she 
could hardly believe that men had fought to the last 
choking breath and died beneath the careless mound. 
If this was a fort, where were the cannons, wrecked 
or sound, where were those things that they call 
cupolas, and why, why, in the name of Heaven, why 
sand ? 

The torn cathedral of Mechlin was infinitely more 
convincing, so were the battered cottages, the roofless 
houses of Vilvorde, or the little village church of Ep- 
peghem, where the tombs in the churchyard had been 
profaned by the falling shells, and where the works of 
the church-clock dangled within the ruined tower, shud- 
dering with rusty moans when heavy carts passed outside 
on the broken high road. 

It was dusk before Jim and Kissy reached Mechlin 
again, and night when they set out ploddingly for 
Brussels, perched precariously on a narrow plank that 
had been lashed athwart the long cradle of a brewer’s 
cart. In the distance slowly crawling German trains 
groaned and whistled on the Antwerp-Brussels line, a 
cold wind rustled through the darkness and stirred up 
the dead leaves. In the pale light of the lanterns the 
wayside graves loomed for brief flashes out of the gloom. 
The far-distant cannon boomed with monotonous in- 


HE TRAVELS FASTEST 287 

sistence, and Kissy, her face hidden against Jim’s coat, 
and her fingers pressed into her ears, implored her 
personal deity wildly : “ Pragod, help me to let Jim 
go, and please take care of him . . . and me . . . and 
Whiskers too.” 


CHAPTER VIII 
— Who Travels Alone 
I 

Although they were to leave Brussels at dawn it was 
past midnight when Jim came up to the bedroom where 
Kissy had been vainly trying to sleep for the last two 
hours in obedience to Jim’s desire that she should be 
“ fit for to-morrow.” 

There had been much to do before Jim considered 
himself free to leave the business in Degrief’s hands 
and make his attempt to reach England with Kissy. 

In the first days of the German occupation, he had 
officially made over his share of the partnership to 
Degrief, who was now, in name, sole proprietor. This, 
of course, was merely a temporary arrangement, a pre- 
ventive measure to safeguard the concern from the 
possible sequestration that Jim feared on account of 
his nationality. Jim was greatly worried at being 
obliged to place so much responsibility on Degriefs 
shoulders, but he had no other alternative. 

Pity that Degrief was such an infernal slacker ! It 
was a good job, though, that his wife was such a wise 
little woman, and so sensibly aware of her husband’s 
shortcomings. She would perhaps be able to keep some 
sense of his obligations active in his soul, and would 
coax him to “ put a little water in his wine ” in 
dealing with workmen and customers. Before leaving 
Jim paid a year’s salary in advance to the families 
of those workmen who were at the war, and Kissy 
made innumerable small frocks and stitched some 
288 


— WHO TRAVELS ALONE 239 

absurdly tiny knickerbockers on Charlotte’s sewing- 
machine. 

This evening, the last, Kissy and Jim had dined 
together on the little terrace overlooking the wood. The 
garden, which Kissy watered, weeded, and kept with 
anxious, inexperienced care herself, was already brightly 
satisfying to the eye. The cherry- and pear-trees were 
in blossom, and as each faint breeze blew on them shed 
tremulous showers of tiny white petals to the neatly 
raked earth of the flower-border below. The lilacs 
looked as if they might burst into flower any moment, 
the rhubarb-plant sent its great hardy leaves sprawling 
across the narrow path, the crimson rambler was doing 
nicely, thank you, and so were the Caroline Testouts 
and the Madame Herriots. The pale spiked leaves of 
the lilies of the valley shone modestly in a shady corner, 
the great clumps of peonies were beginning to take 
notice, a youthful chestnut, which had not yet learned 
to bloom, was confidently bursting out of itr sticky 
gloves and unfurling its five-fingered leaves of acute 
green, and beyond was the wood, glorious in all the 
eager young splendour of spring. 

After dinner they sat close in the double armchair 
and spoke intermittently of many subjects that were 
dear to them, and Jim exacted for the last time of many 
Kissy ’s word of honour to obey him implicitly on the 
morrow. 

At ten o’clock he sent her to bed and went to write 
a few last letters, one of them to Degrief, setting con- 
cisely forth in black and white certain pet theories 
concerning the proper treatment of employees, and a 
last appeal to his partner not to forget in all his dealings 
that times were hard, that nerves were on edge, that 
the longest credits possible were to be extended to those 
who needed them, and that it would be preferable to 
bum down the yard, the stock, the machines, and the 


240 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

offices rather than sell the value of a match to the 

enemy. 

It was a long letter, and when it was finished he 
sealed it and went upstairs carrying with him a little 
linen envelope containing five notes for a thousand 
francs each that he wished Kissy to carry, sewn into 
her little belt-like corset, next day. He, too, was carry- 
ing money which had already been stitched into the 
lining of his boots. 

He tiptoed into the dressing-room, clicked the com- 
mutator, and peeped into the bedroom ; in the gush of 
light that filtered through the chink of the door he saw 
that Kissy’s eyes were wide-fixed in a sleepless stare. 

“ Still awake ? ” he said reproachfully. 

“ I can't get to sleep,” complained Kissy, “ I just can’t. 
I keep thinking and thinking about to-morrow, and . . . 
and it’s so empty here without you. Do come to bed 
now. You’ve been so long.” 

“ In a minute,” promised Jim, and immediately the 
dressing-room resounded with the energetic bustle of 
a swift disrobal, and from the bathroom came a loud 
splashing and the sharp hiss of the shower. 

Damp-headed and cool Jim slipped into bed, and 
Kissy, snuggling close, groped with her head for the 
usual place on his shoulder, where she finally reposed 
with a contented sigh. 

“ I wish people’s hearts were over on their right sides,” 
she said impatiently ; “it somehow makes me feel 
frightened when I hear you going bumpety-bump, 
bumpety-bump all the time under my ear.” 

“ I know what you’re thinking of, you great little 
silly,” answered Jim, “ ‘ like muffled drums,’ and all 
that sort of stuff, eh ? ” 

“ I hate Longfellow,” was Kissy’s viciously snappy 
comment. 

And after that, in a little while, they tried to sleep, 


— WHO TRAVELS ALONE 241 

but sleep remained as elusive a goal even now that they 
were together as it had been to Kissy alone, and so 
sometimes softly whispering, sometimes silent with the 
eloquent silence of lovers, they lay in each other’s arms 
till dawn flushed over the tree-tops and the paling stars 
faded in the glory of the sky. 

II 

Ten days later Jeanne Degrief rang a shrill double 
dre-ling on the front-door bell of the Little House. 

“ Well ? And Madame ? Is she arrived ? ” she 
asked Fina, who opened the door. 

“ Madame is arrived of yesterday,” said Fina import- 
antly, “ but Madame is gone out to-day immediately 
after the cMjeuner — to the prison of St. Gilles, I think — 
and Madame is not re-entered.” 

Madame Degrief pushed by Fina and walked into the 
dining-room. “ Go, fetch thy mother, m’girl, I have 
to speak with her,” was her peremptory comment. 
Fina flushed angrily and departed with a naughty little 
sniff. 

From the open terrace door of the smoking-room 
Jeanne Degrief could see Charlotte, sleeves well rolled 
up over pink arms and water-sodden hands, pegging 
out the week’s wash at the bottom of the garden. 

It was no reason because her master had been arrested 
by the Germans, and her mistress was heartbroken, that 
the domestic routine should suffer and that towels or 
aprons should go dirty. 

When Fina gave her Madame Degriefs message she 
scowled impatiently as she indicated to Fina the basket 
of clothes-pegs, and motioned with her chin that she 
was to continue the “ hanging-out ” process. 

“ What does she want that I should tell her, me ? ” 
she grumbled. “ What manners are these ? Talking 

Q 


242 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

to servants ! One has never seen that 1 ” But she 
marched up to the house immediately ; not up to the 
terrace, but ostentatiously round by the kitchen and 
up the back stairs, tapping politely at the dining-room 
door. 

“ Enter,” said Jeanne Degrief. 

“ What can I make for the service of Madame ? ” 
asked Charlotte severely. 

“ Tell me then, is it true that Monsieur will be sent 
to prison in Germany for having tried to cross the 
frontier of Holland, and that he gave himself up so that 
Madame should not be taken ? ” 

“ One does not know if Monsieur goes to Germany, 
since Monsieur is not yet judged. Monsieur is to be 
judged next week. But it is probable all the same, so 
Madame fears, for so the advocate of Monsieur told 
Madame. In effect Monsieur went in front of the sen- 
tinels because it was but a question of moments before 
they would have discovered Madame and Monsieur, and 
Monsieur preferred, of course, that Madame should not 
go to prison if he could prevent Madame of it.” 

“ Then they were already right on the border when 
they were taken ? ” 

“ But a few yards, about ! It was a little wood twelve 
kilometres from Antwerp. I know it well ; I am from 
a village over there. There was no moon, and Madame 
and Monsieur were following the guide when the sen- 
tinels, who had been doubled without the guide having 
known, cried “ Halt,” and began at once to fire. The 
guide ran away, but Madame and Monsieur lay flat on 
their bellies and waited. Monsieur hoped that the 
soldiers would go away if they heard no more move- 
ments, but instead of that they commenced to search 
at that place, stabbing the ground and the bushes with 
their bayonets. At first Monsieur lifted himself all 
quietly and slowly and covered Madame with his own 


— WHO TRAVELS ALONE 243 

body, but then he must have thought more wisely, for 
what would Madame have become with Monsieur killed 
on her back ? It would have been a case to send one 
mad on the field, so Monsieur called out in German that 
he was coming forward, and then whispered to Madame 
to wait till dawn and return to Antwerp, and since 
Madame had promised obedience, Madame did as Mon- 
sieur said. That is all ! ” 

Charlotte paused and took breath with a triumphant 
air, as if to say, “ Can you beat that for a tale ? ” 

“ And Madame came all the way back to Antwerp 
alone ? ” demanded Madame Degrief incredulously. 

“ But yes. The guide returned to the spot when it 
was safe, but Madame denounced him for a coward, 
and when Madame paid him for the work he had so 
badly accomplished, Madame would have no more tv 
make with him.” 

“ And Madame remained in Antwerp till they decided 
to bring Monsieur back to Brussels for judgment 
then ? ” asked Madame Degrief, athirst for details. 
“ Fina has told me that Madame is to the prison of 
St. Gilles at the moment. Had she not seen Monsieur 
in Antwerp ? ” 

“ Madame remained in Antwerp, but Madame under- 
stood it was better for Monsieur that she remains in 
hiding. That is why I am au cov,rant, for Madame 
wrote by messenger to tell me and to send clothes and 
food to Monsieur from Brussels in Madame’s name. 
But every day Madame would get news of Monsieur by 
Monsieur’s advocate, that is why Madame only returned 
yesterday at the same time as Monsieur. It is com- 
prehensible that Madame likes to feel herself so near 
Monsieur as possible, even if she cannot see Monsieur. 
Madame and Monsieur are so devoted. And to-day 
Madame sees Monsieur for the first time since that night. 
Madame did not have too good an air when she arrived 


244 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

home, but when she departed for the prison she was 

transfigured ! ” 

A key clicked and turned in the lock of the front door, 
a light step entered the hall, and Kissy appeared on the 
threshold. Charlotte hurried forwards to take her hat 
and gloves. In the shady inner room Kissy appeared 
very white and exhausted, and with a weary gesture 
she pushed back the damp locks of hair that were cling- 
ing to her forehead with the back of her hand. 

“ Madame is tired,” cried Charlotte with sincere and 
motherly solicitude. “ Madame shall rest on the terrace 
and I will bring a nice cup of tea.” 

“ By and by ! Yes, I am a little tired, and, above 
all, I am very warm I ” Then as the servant vanished 
Kissy turned to Madame Degrief and smiled as she held 
out her hand. 

“ My poor, dear little Madame,” gushed the good 
woman. 

“ James is quite well, thank you . . . and ... if it 
is equal to you ... if it makes you nothing,” said 
Kissy politely, but in such a tiny, poor little voice, 
“ I would rather not talk about it. . . . How are the 
children ? ” 

A few minutes later Madame Degrief went home to her 
husband — who happened not to be at the works that 
afternoon — in a state of fine indignation. 

“ One can say what one likes,” was her prim-lipped 
comment ; “ but an honest woman could not be so 
hard-hearted ! ” 

That night Charlotte, from her attic, heard the not- 
honest woman sobbing till morning. 

Ill 

The date of Jim’s trial was thrice postponed during 
the slowly crawling warm June days, and he learned 


— WHO TRAVELS ALONE 245 

to know the terrible depression of the prisoner as he 
waited in his narrow prison cell at St. Gilles. 

Kissy lived in suspense. It seemed to her that the 
trial could only end one way : with an instant ordering 
off to execution ; and when she tragically voiced her 
fears it was difficult to persuade her that the lawyer 
and her beloved Jim were not acting when they roared 
with laughter and assured her that the worst that could 
happen would be Jim’s incarceration in a German fortress 
till the end of the war ; for luckily Jim had not been 
carrying any compromising papers, and there was, at 
that moment, no special “ spy scare ” with which 'the 
German authorities could endeavour to connect his 
attempted departure. The probable fate that awaited 
Jim was internment in one of the civilian concentration 
camps. 

Kissy was able to send food and clean linen to Jim 
frequently ; she was allowed also, thanks to the good 
offices of Maitre Sadi Kirschen, a famous Belgian lawyer 
who did much during the German occupation of Brussels 
to alleviate the sufferings of his fellow-countrymen, to 
see and speak with him for an hour once a week. These 
interviews took place in the prison-yard during the 
exercise hour. There was always a crowd, and one 
never knew when a spy might be listening at one’s 
elbow. These were unrestful, unsatisfying moments, 
but they were better than nothing. 

Nevertheless Jim was able to let Kissy know all that 
mattered through his lawyer and later, when finally 
the cause was heard and his departure to Germany was 
no longer a Damoclean nightmare, but a looming reality, 
he managed to obtain permission to see Kissy alone. 

He had much to tell. His hope of evasion and his 
plans to keep Kissy an courant , if he succeeded, by means 
of advertisements in the agony columns of the papers 
that were smuggled into Belgium, and possibly even of 


246 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

letters or cards posted through Holland or Switzerland. 
She might reply, too, perhaps. He would manage to 
let her know an address and a woman’s name to write 
to. “ Just talk of the weather and your health, my 
dearest dear,” he said ; “ avoid any topic that might 
awake hostile curiosity or suspicion.” Kissy listened 
with closed eyes and beating heart, biting back her 
prayer that he should be careful . * . that he should 
resign himself to tranquil captivity . . . that he should 
run no morp risks. . . . Those sentinels with their stab- 
bing bayonets and their horrible guns ! . . . Mon Dieu 
. . . was it possible that one’s heart could hurt one so 1 
But Jim went on talking with sanguine enthusiasm . . . 
he would reach England and do whatever little bit they 
would let him ... it was going to be horrible to be 
separated from Kissy, but the war would soon be over — 
he really thought so — and then they would never, never 
be separated again. Kissy had plenty of money to go 
on with, and Degrief was to let her have so much every 
week from the yard . . . nothing would happen to 
Brussels, and Kissy would be quite safe, but she must 
be careful never to infringe any of the German laws 
. . . and if she found herself in any difficulty to go at 
once to the lawyer, who would tell her what to do. Jim 
did not add that he had also made his will and had left 
everything he possessed in the world, including the 
Soderstronj patents, to Kissy, for he knew that such a 
fact would have dismayed her beyond word. 

Although she was tearless and very, very quiet, Kissy 
was in a pitiful state as she clung speechlessly to Jim 
with passionate hands that seemed as if they would 
never relax, and Jim, looking in her mauve-circled eyes 
and at the little white face turned up to his, was bitterly 
remorseful to think how he had let things slide during 
the past months. They ought to have been married 
in Brussels directly their journey to London became 


— WHO TRAVELS ALONE 247 

impossible — only then, of course, “ people would have 
known,” and Kissy had clung fondly to the illusion that 
“ people didn’t know ! ” 

“ I have been a cad,” he thought, and he said so. 

Kissy ardently resented this assertion. 

“ You haven’t,” she cried with fierce indignation. 
“ How can you say so ! Who’m I ? Just me that made 
hats and . . . and went wrong. And yet you took me 
with you and were so good to me you asked me to marry 
you ! It’s as good as being married just to have been 
asked, and to have planned all those beautiful plans. 
Don’t talk like that, my dear, it doesn’t seem right. I 
love you. I love you and I’m so grateful ... it chokes 
me because I can’t say how much. If you only knew, 
my dear, my dearest dear, my heart is just your thing 
to do what you like with, and you have treated it as 
if it was something precious, ah, you have made me the 
proudest and happiest girl on earth ” 

“ And haven’t you made me the happiest, luckiest 
devil in the world ? ” he demanded fiercely, and that 
was the last coherent thing they said. 

IV 

The Little House became immense to Kissy when she 
found herself alone in it. 

The cold tidiness of the dressing-room, now that Jim 
was no longer there to strew it with boot-trees, damp 
crumpled towels, socks, ties, and unsatisfactory collars, 
was chilling to contemplate. His boots, wonderfully 
dusted by Kissy each morning, stood in a neat row on 
the low, cretonne-curtained shelves designed for them. 
In the cupboard Jim’s shirts were neatly stacked in 
rainbow piles, and the immaculate purity of his evening 
shirts was protected from contamination by an envelop- 
ing dust-cloth. His collars reposed, wheels within 


248 


THE BROKEN LAUGH 

wheels, like a Chinese puzzle, no longer to be turned 
topsy-turvy in a hurried rush to find the pluperfect 
specimen of virginal buttonholes, irreproachable fold, 
and speckless glossiness. No longer would he scatter 
his innumerable ties over chair-backs and dressing-table, 
and declare with perfect good faith, in front of a whole 
gamut of greens and purples and blues, “ I haven’t a 
tie to wear.” The cupboard doors, which he always 
left swinging, were now mutely closed ; the drawers, 
which had yawned wide, showing dishevelled contents, 
were neatly pushed to. Every bottle on the toilet- 
table was stoppered. The combs, brushes, nail -files, 
and a quantity of fiddling toilet wnnecessaries lay in 
prim order. The soap reposed in dry security in its 
china dish instead of in the centre of a pool of water 
or at the bottom of the basin. In the medicine cup- 
board, which held no medicine, the boxes of Jim’s 
reserve stock of shaving-soap rested in their unbroken 
paper overalls, and an air of eternal spring-cleaning 
brooded over the room. 

It was shocking to think how little they had let him 
take with him. The suit he stood up in, an overcoat, 
three shirts — what could Jim’s fastidiousness do with 
three shirts ? — four pairs of socks, and half a dozen collars. 

The only consolation the future held was that when 
these were worn Kissy would be allowed to send him 
others. 

In prevision of the winter Kissy commenced to knit 
innumerable sleeping-helmets, mufflers, sweaters, waist- 
coats, and socks. 

“ Even if he escapes and doesn’t need them I’ll always 
find some one who’ll be glad to have them,” was Kissy ’s 
excuse when, after working like a Polish emigrant in 
an East-side sweat-shop, she finished her twelfth helmet. 
It was the only work she could do just then that seemed 
to have some bearing on the situation. All Jim’s clothes 


— WHO TRAVELS ALONE 249 

were awaiting his need in a fine completion of buttons 
and mending, and this knitting, while it occupied her 
eager hands, left Kissy’s mind free to dwell on the 
bitter-sweetness of memories and the half-fearful joy 
of looking into the blind unknown of the future. 

Undeniably Kissy hugged her loneliness. Since she 
could not have Jim at least she wanted no one else, and 
infinitely preferred a solitude that was peopled with 
dreams to the uncongenial atmosphere of the Degriefs’ 
home, to which she was insistently invited. 

There, crowded into a small, underground species of 
“ kitchen-parlour,” Kissy would find a fine assortment 
of wild-haired, pipe-smoking, bare-necked ranters in- 
competently discussing the war, and, above all, the 
great question of whether the Flemish language should 
or should not be compulsory in the State schools. In 
the midst of the hubbub, heavy-eyed and dizzy in the 
smoke-fogged air, the eldest Degrief child pored over 
her lesson and copy-books, her precocious, pointed little 
face lifting occasionally to listen with perplexity when 
the unending discussions became more vivid, and to 
hold steady the inkpot with her small rough paw when 
her father had reached the table-thumping stage. 

It was not that the house was a small one. But 
Degrief’s tyrannous esprit de famille urged him to never 
let his children out of his sight if he could help it, and 
to “ crowd close ” on all occasions, public or private. 
The children’s bedroom opened into that of the parents 
and the communicating door was never closed. The 
Saturday bath was Japanese in its lack of privacy, and 
in the summer out in the back garden they would turn 
the hose on each other, clad in garments more startling 
than picturesque. 

During the earlier part of the evening Jeanne Degrief 
was busy upstairs putting the smaller children to bed 
after bringing them in for a night-gowned, circular good 


250 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

night, and later she would join her guests, her hands 
still damp and red from dish-water, apologizing for the 
basket of mending that was set down near her daughter’s 
inkpot, with due recommendation not to splash ; and 
then she would sit, mending — and coughing — till the 
clock struck midnight with such loud obviousness that 
the pipe-smokers could delay their departure no longer. 
Sometimes the ranters who were married brought their 
wives ; stringy, blotchy-complexioned females, with 
dull hair and charwoman hands, whose bodies were 
covered with clothes that stank with a stale odour of 
kitchen and infinite rancidness. 

In the diary that Kissy began to keep that autumn 
she wrote : “. . . They are noisy and frowsy, and they 
can’t possibly know so much as they think they do ; 
besides, when I go there they disturb my thoughts, and 
it’s like leaving Jim at home alone. . . .” 

Except for the daily walk that was taken with religious 
exactitude because Jim would have wished it, and 
because Whiskers would never let her forget the hour 
for starting, Kissy passed her days on the terrace or, 
if it rained, just behind the terrace window, and while 
Whiskers slept and muttered dog mutters in his sleep, 
or played with the wooden daming-ball that was his 
pet toy, Kissy’s needles clicked busily while her eyes 
gazed unseeingly at the gently moving tree-tops. Some- 
times her eyes were misty with tears/ Sometimes bright 
with hope, and then her mouth smiled tenderly and 
seemed full of kisses till a sudden aching fear brought 
her back to reality, and then, dropping her knitting and 
clasping her hands in white-knuckled frenzy, she would 
Pragod wildly that Jim should be taken care of. 

V 

It was late autumn before Jim, who had sweated and 
starved and then frozen and starved — in spite of Kissy’s 


— WHO TRAVELS ALONE 251 

frequent parcels of clothing and food, which most of 
the time were stolen or went astray — in a German 
prison, made his attempt to escape and, with unheard- 
of luck, succeeded. For several weeks he lav hidden in 
a charitable and heroic old Bavarian’s house, who cheer- 
fully accepted the enormous risk of hospitalizing him 
because, he declared, it would bring luck to mein Sohn , 
who in England was, also prisoner ! “ And would the 

hochgeborene , if his own country he safely reached, 
make that which he could for mein Sohn , and see 
that mein Sohn’s back was covered and his belly 
filled ? ” 

The old fellow explained ingenuously in the face of 
Jim’s blunt statement that, of course, he would do all 
he could except help him to get away, that he had no 
desire to see his Liebling return to the butchery of the 
Front, or to the starved cities of Germany, and so with 
a clear conscience Jim remained in hiding till a favourable 
opportunity to reach the Dutch frontier presented itself. 
He got to La Haye safely, was welcomed there with 
open arms, and after having arranged for a series of 
messages to appear for a week in the agony column of 
the Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant, and having written 
several letters, which were, in due time, smuggled 
through to Kissy, departed for England with the fairly 
easy conscience that was conduced by the optimistic 
opinion that those damned Huns couldn’t possibly 
“ stick it out ” much longer. 

In England he achieved his desire of joining the 
aviation corps. He had already had some experience 
as an amateur at Buc and Villa Coublay during his 
“ wasted years,” and had even cassS du bois in company 
with Chatain, who was badly smashed up, while Jim 
managed to escape with but the scratch that enabled 
him to consider himself blooded. 

It was with a light heart that he went into training 


252 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

camp, for he hoped that in his case this necessary 
period would be as short as possible. 

Kissy received the news with dubious emotion. It 
was, in the first place, a miracle to be marvelled at and 
gratefully commented on that he was safely out of Ger- 
many. She would, of course, infinitely have preferred 
him to remain in tranquil captivity, but since that could 
not be, then many thanks were due to Pragod that the 
evasion had been successfully carried out. 

The idea of Jim joining the Army was terrible enough ; 
Kissy imagined trenches as deep, damp, semi-sewer* like 
arrangements in which Jim might die of consumption 
or be crippled with rheumatism, if he was not blown 
up by a mine or a shell, or killed by those stabbing, 
wrenching bayonets, or choked by asphyxiating gases. 
But the news that Jim was to fly in one of those aero- 
plane-things, fly right up in the air, miles up, so high 
up that perhaps if you fell you might miss the earth 
altogether and come down into nothingness, was an 
unbearable thought. In the trenches at least there were 
probably days and days when next to nothing happened. 
But in those aeroplanes you were risking death all the 
time, since, apart from all the fighting, you might come 
down any minute! Kissy tried hard to remember all 
she had ever heard about aviation, but the only definite 
thing she could recall was Jim’s truculent statement 
that, so far as he could see, the only definite way to 
bring down a Zeppelin that was menacing a city 
containing helpless women and children was to fly 
“ bang into it,” and be hanged to the ensuing personal 
result. 

Not a reassuring recollection to look back upon, and 
Kissy’s Pragod supplications increased till, for a while, 
she seemed to mutter ceaselessly like a young novice 
telling her beads, and the words harmonized rhythmi- 
cally with the clicking of the knitting-needles, “ Take 


— WHO TRAVELS ALONE 253 

care of him, take care of him — oh, please, please , please 
take care of him.” 

More than ever Kissy withdrew into her loneliness 
and refused to leave the Little House unless to escort 
Whiskers — or was it Whiskers who escorted her ? — into 
the wood. 

But just as the soldier becomes accustomed to live 
in the midst of death, Kissy became accustomed to live 
with the thought of it ; so accustomed that in k little 
while it became as familiar as the loud ticking of the 
clock which, from habit, one no longer perceives, and 
she was able again to smile as she dreamed of the after- 
war future. 

As the weeks passed, and the smuggled English and 
French papers continued to arrive, containing their 
scrappy but comforting messages, and she guessed that 
trial flight had succeeded trial flight without mishap, 
she found it possible sometimes to fold up her knitting 
and enjoy a novel from the Lecture Universelle without 
the horrific vision of Jim’s mangled form daubing the 
printed page a dark and muddied crimson. It was then 
that Kissy inaugurated certain days on which the 
Degrief children came to tea, for Jeanne Degrief was 
not well and it was a charity to someitmes rid her of 
the eternal nag of the boy-child, the stolid egoism of 
the middle girl, and the pallid, unhealthy goodness of 
the slim-bodied Anna, who had learned to “ help little 
mother” with unchildlike efficiency. Frequently also 
the knitting was laid aside in order to help Madame 
Degrief with her mending. Kissy, after taking the 
children home in the evening, would resist all invita- 
tions to supper, and return to the Little House laden 
with a bundle of socks, stockings, and small torn 
garments. 

As December drew near Kissy spoke to Jeanne Degrief 
about a Christmas-tree and childish festivities, and was 


254 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

disappointed — for the children’s sake — to hear that 
immutable custom required their presence at a grand- 
mother’s board. 

Regrets were exchanged, and the matter rested till 
Degrief, who had, through some extraordinary chain 
of events, been at the yard that day, rushed round to 
the Little House on his return from business. After 
having, from sheer force of habit, peered into Jim’s 
cigar-box and found it empty, he generously gave Kissy 
permission to entertain the children on St. Nicolas Day, 
which is the Flemish equivalent for Christmas. 

Now St. Nicolas Day falls on December 6, and for 
Kissy ensued a certain rush. 

From early morning till late at night she toiled ; and 
the neglected Whiskers, finding his walks curtailed, grew 
savagely jealous of the immense doll that was being so 
grandly garbed in Valenciennes-trimmed underclothing, 
white satin corset, pink muslin frock, and white knitted 
coat. He also growled violently at the noise made by 
the busy fret-saw that gnawed its way through in- 
numerable cigar-box lids, making the crenated battle- 
ments that were to surround the most wonderful toy 
fort that ever female carpentry evolved. 

It was nearly a yard square at the base, and its various 
platforms, carefully guarded by battlements and loop- 
holed walls, were made of large and small cigar-boxes 
glued and nailed together. Drawbridges could be 
raised by means of tiny hinges and chains, completely 
isolating each platform from the one below in time of 
stress and hard-pressing attacks. There were armoured 
cupolas made from old iron soupladles which had 
been detached from their handles. Realistic cannons 
frowned from all angles. One of the ladles, in which 
a hole had been worn, Kissy fixed to a revolving disc, 
the muzzle of a penny cannon was thrust upwards 
through the apeiture, and woe betide any “ Taube ” 


—WHO TRAVELS ALONE 255 

that came into the range of this most modem aeroplane 
gun. 

The fort received its last coat of grey paint on St. 
Nicolas Eve, and the great question became : “ Would 
or would it not be dry in time ? ” 

It was, and the children were speechless with delight 
when they saw the imposing stronghold defiantly rearing 
its impregnable walls from the green sward of the dining- 
room tablecloth, thronged with tin soldiers and sur- 
rounded by an impassable tangle of barbed-wire defences 
and countless sand-bags, which replaced the moat that 
even Kissy’s ingenuity had not been able to engineer. 

Wonderful attacks were organized and beaten off with 
the tin cannons. And a paper Taube, coming within 
range of the aeroplane gun, was brought down amid 
cheers and great excitement. When the ammunition 
gave out, the besiegers and besieged pelted each other 
with sand-bags — some of which were found in the most 
inaccessible corners of the room during the spring- 
cleaning five months afterwards — great execution was 
done, and the attacking party had to retire carrying 
their dead and wounded with them. 

After which both sides shook hands and adjourned to 
the canteen. It was a highly successful party. Kissy, 
too, enjoyed herself, except when Degrief, sitting in 
Jim’s favourite chair, lighted a cigar that smelled 
“ almost exactly ” like those Jim always used to smoke. 
Kissy was conscious then, more than she had ever been 
before, of her loneliness and the unbearableness of Jim’s 
absence. 


VI 

The short December days, with their accompanying 
storms of rain and wind, passed slowly one by one, 
astonishingly alike to Kissy. Always in the morning 
came the inevitable walk in the wood with Whiskers; 


256 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

it never varied. Whiskers liked it, and Kissy only 
wanted to please Whiskers ; also, it is true, there were 
two beggars who expected her daily dole, and she could 
not have borne to disappoint them. 

They were old, old men, ague-shaken, hollow of body, 
and red-rimmed of eye. Professional beggars — what 
other profession could they follow in order to keep out 
of the hospice they so poignantly dreaded ? 

To them Kissy gave of her stock of knitting, to others, 
too ; ragged, threadbare strangers whom she met in 
the wood and in the street. 

“ Would you like this ? ” she would inquire diffidently 
as she produced her offering from one of the roomy 
pockets of her last winter’s coat, and it was always with 
a feeling of profound relief that she heard an affirmative 
reply, she was always terribly afraid of hurting any 
one’s feelings. 

When the wind had been high, lean and ragged crowds 
clattered in sabots from fireless slums to pick up the 
rotten and the broken branches that littered the paths 
and lawns, and Kissy, who knew where the harvest was 
likely to be thickest, often advised their search. It was 
the same when the woodcutters had been at work, and 
more than once she helped old people to carry the 
bulging sacks of waste wood and shavings that the men 
allowed them to pick up. 

Sometimes, when the rain pelted and the wood was 
deserted by the poor souls who feared to expose their 
exhausted rags and bodies to an ordeal by water, Kissy, 
wrapped in an old waterproof of Jim’s, furtively stacked 
high piles of brushwood in bypaths, making a sort of 
cache that she knew would be discovered sooner or later. 
She did this just as, in the acorn season, she had hunted 
for acorns, filling her pockets, and then silently empty- 
ing them into the bags of the bare-headed women who 
slowly walked with bent rheumatic backs, patiently and 


—WHO TRAVELS ALONE 257 

wearily searching. And when she saw boys and men 
lip in the trees stealing the chestnuts, or, by the lake’s 
edge, fishing, she looked the other way, or even, where 
she knew that a keeper was in dangerous proximity, 
called loudly to Whiskers so that they should look round 
and take warning. 

They seemed to Kissy such miserable souls, so bereft 
of all and neglected. So entirely beyond the scope of 
those innumerable charitable associations which preface 
all their doles with committee meetings and pharisaical 
cross - questionings . 

Besides, to what charitable society could Kissy have 
belonged ? She knew no one and had no friends to 
introduce her to the blanket brigade or the coal -ticket 
dispensers. And, after all, what was she herself but 
one of those cases which Society sweepingly labels as 
“ Undeserving.” 

One morning, just after she had slipped a one-franc 
note into the hand of a gaunt-faced, blue-lipped, half- 
clad woman, who carried a shrivelled baby, Kissy was 
stopped by a throaty young man in shiny black and a 
clerical collar, who explained to her in very British 
French the evils of indiscriminate charity. 

“ What ought I to do ? ” asked Kissy demurely ; “ tell 
me in English, please ! ” 

The throaty young man tried hard to keep from dron- 
ing, and only partially succeeded as he explained his 
views to Kissy. 

“ Thank you,” she answered mildly, “ but perhaps 
she doesn’t carry her marriage certificate about with 
her, and while one would be making all those investiga- 
tions she would have time to starve ! One couldn’t be 
much hungrier than she looked and go on living, I think I 
Besides, really, really and truly, I wouldn’t dare to ask 
a stranger all those things ! ” Then as she turned to 
go she added with calm amiability : “You see, I’m a 

R 


258 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

bad woman myself, as it happens, so what can you 

expect ! ” 

She was bright-eyed and defiant as she walked home 
that morning, and she boisterously romped with Whiskers 
half the afternoon, and then, since after all she was a 
silly little sentimental thing, she cried herself to sleep 
that night because “ she knew she wasn’t really respect- 
able.” 


VII 

Kissy spent the afternoon and evening of Christmas 
Day entirely alone with Whiskers. 

But they were neither her loneliest nor her unhappiest 
hours which were passed in the big armchair by the 
murmuring stove. 

It was nearly three o’clock when Charlotte and Fina 
locked the kitchen door with a noisy rattle and departed 
to the familial festivities that awaited them. 

In their best clothes, but, out of respect for Madame, 
not yet hatted, they came into the dining-room and 
made their adieux. 

“ With the permission of Madame, we will depart 
now,” said Charlotte. 

“ But certainly, amuse yourselves well,” answered 
Kissy. 

“ Madame is very kind . . . there is nothing more 
that we can do for Madame ? Madame is sure she does 
not wish that one should return to prepare the supper 
of Madame.” 

“ But no, but no ! It is not of necessity. I am well 
capable to make that,” said Kissy. 

Charlotte and Fina expressed grateful thanks again, 
then : 

44 Au revoir , Madame ,” they chorused, “ till to-night.” 

44 That’s it, Charlotte, good-bye.” 

“ That’s it, Madame ! ” 


—WHO TRAVELS ALONE 259 

A short silence in the hall while they put on their 
hats, and then the front door closed. 

With the air of a conspirator Kissy tiptoed out and 
shot the big brass bolt home, Whiskers trotting after 
her, his black-and-white nose lifted inquiringly. 

With a great and involuntary rattling and creaking 
she let down the outer shutters in the front room and 
then returned, as softly as she left it, to the smoking- 
sitting-room. 

Filling the little stove with a generous supply of coal 
Kissy opened wide its doors till the swiftly kindled flames 
darted forth, struggling and fighting as they writhed 
up the pipe. 

Then very carefully she went to her work-table and 
brought out a dark folded object which proved to be 
an old smoking- jacket of Jim’s ; this she spread over 
the back of the armchair so that her cheek could touch 
and caress it as she leant sideways, and so that its faint 
masculine perfume of fine tobacco, and an even fainter 
and inexplicable odour of cedarwood that was peculiar 
to Jim, enveloped her, growing stronger as the warmth 
of the fire reached the rough surface of the material. 

Cosily, with a tender snuggling movement, she curled 
herself up in the big armchair, her face lovingly pressed 
against Jim’s coat. From the mantelpiece Jim’s photo- 
graph looked down at her, and between her fingers she 
held Jim’s last letter. 

It was a grey Christmas, and outside the dusk was 
already gathering ; the infinite murmur of the dark, 
naked trees as they moved uneasily against the lighter 
sky came softly to mingle with the scolding roar of the 
stove. 

Long and intently Kissy gazed up into the unrespon- 
sive eyes of the photograph until the thickening dusk 
blurred the picture with its shadows, then reaching up 
Kissy took the frame into her hand, and cradling it, 


260 


THE BROKEN LAUGH 

with the letter, against her heart, crouched back in the 
comer of the chair and shut her eyes. 

The hours passed and still ^he remained with closed 
lids, utterly motionless except sometimes that her lips 
moved. 

She was not asleep, only a little drowsy, just enough 
to make the dreamland in which she wandered a splendid 
reality. 

The smoking-sitting-room of the Little House had 
vanished. She was with Jim, in the vast hall of an old 
English castle. A huge wood fire blazed on an open 
hearth, there was a great deal of dark oak panelling, a 
broad shallow-stepped, oaken staircase, tapestry curtains 
where draughts might have been, ancestral portraits, 
and dimly gleaming suits of armour. 

On the low wide dais that filled the end of the hall, 
under some gorgeous stained-glass windows, stood an 
immense table laden with bath-buns, very brown and 
sugary on top, strawberries and cream — in dream Christ- 
mas parties you can have strawberries and cream — 
Devonshire junket, Queen’s pudding, tipsy-cake, bananas, 
sardine sandwiches, hot buttered toast and anchovy 
paste, and an array of little dishes containing the very 
same hors-d'oeuvre as those which had enchanted Kissy 
at the Chatham that Christmas three years ago, when 
for the first time Jim sat opposite her. Christmas 
pudding, the flames of which were as brilliantly blue 
and gold as if the great hall was in darkness instead of 
blazing with countless lights ; bread and butter, thin 
and wafery and ladylike ; bread and butter that was 
all hot crusts and very dairy-maidish ; Devonshire 
cream and strawberry jam, almond-rock and peppermint 
molasses. The table necessarily had great thick legs 
like those of a grand piano. 

Jim was in evening dress with a white waistcoat that 
showed his nice absence of stomach, and below which 


— WHO TRAVELS ALONE 261 

dangled a new gold-and-platinum key-chain which he 
had found in the sock that hung from the foot of his 
bed that morning. Kissy wore a soft white broch6 
frock, very, very slinky, trimmed with Venetian point, 
and a long rope of pearls. Not that she was dreaming 
that she wanted pearls, but because the fashionable 
English ladies who are photographed for the “ Tatler ” 
by Lallie Charles are always dressed like that. She also 
wore two great pearls in her ears, and her figure was at 
least four inches taller and much more matronly than 
the one which was curled up in the big armchair. Jim 
stood astraddle before the fire, while his eldest son, 
Jack, a fair, smooth-haired boy of nine, in a sailor-suit, 
showed him the toy fire-escape he had just finished 
constructing with his new Mecanno. The second girl, 
Denise, a slim, violet-eyed child with long dark curls, 
was pressed close to Kissy’s chair watching the baby 
who, in a white Romney frock, and with bare feet and 
legs, sprawled picturesquely on the hearthrug. 

Even in her dream Kissy was conscious that this 
group might have been called “ Our celebrities at home,” 
or, better still, “ The latest portrait of the Duchess of 
Croydon ; Her Grace, it will be remembered, was Miss 
Olga Day of the Frivolity.” Kissy liked to think that 
there had been chorus girls who had attained the dizzy 
grandeur of strawberry leaves, just as she hated to recall 
the history of Nelson’s enchantress, of which she had 
once read the curt, unextenuating synopsis in the 
Larons se encyclopaedia. 

The dream progressed and the pictures changed with 
the abrupt transitions of dreams. 

The matronly Kissy in the white (that was cream) 
frock and the pearls was welcoming innumerable small 
guests. Prim nursemaids in white (that was blue) were 
dealing with shawls and wraps and “ bronze ” party 
slippers. 


262 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

Jim had vanished because he was to dress up as Santa 
Claus and would only appear after tea. 

Now occurred a hitch. Kissy knew no children except 
the little Degriefs and her own imaginary babies, which 
were very real to her. For a while her dream halted 
and tea grew cold while unconsumed ices melted on 
crystal, gold-rimmed plates, and the toy-laden and 
sparkling Christmas-tree that had suddenly sprouted 
from the centre of the parquetry floor (strewn with 
marvellous Persian rugs) seemed a mocking intrusion. 

Then the ardent imagination of the slim young Kissy 
in the armchair hit upon the fascinating plan of bringing 
to life all the book-children, the dear intimate friends of 
her happy days as well as of her solitude. 

Her lips moved as, drifting more securely on the tide 
of her dream, she welcomed each child by name and 
made them known to her own children. 

The “ Peter Pan ” kiddies were the first to arrive, the 
Darlings ; and Kissy told Wendy how glad she was to 
see her and how much she counted on her to help 
entertain the little ones. 

One of the Twins wore his pink pyjama suit, at which 
Wendy was much distressed. “You see, dear Mrs. 
Kissy,” she explained wistfully, “ he tore his only pair 
of knickerbockers just as we were starting, and the little 
ones wouldn’t let me stop to mend him. Do you know, 
I am almost afraid that he did it on purpose ; he does 
so love wearing his pyjies — they’re silk , you see, and 
Miss Chase gave them to him.” 

Kissy assured Wendy that it didn’t at all matter and 
that she, too, loved pyjies. Then her attention was 
attracted by Peter himself, who was shy and for quite 
a long while would not come into the house. He sat 
in the open upper part of one of the big windows and 
kept flying back into the darkness outside. Later he 
fluttered down to the table, but there he saw a cake 


—WHO TRAVELS ALONE 263 

that reminded him so much of the kind the Pirates used 
to leave about in the Mermaid’s lagoon that he flew 
right back and stayed away for ever such a time. At 
last Kissy managed to coax him to remain ; she gave 
him the most enchanting of motherly thimbles, and he 
was so delighted with it that he settled down near the 
fire and played his pipe exquisitely just as long as the 
others cared to dance to it. 

One thing about Peter troubled Kissy greatly. At 
some moments he looked like a little chubby, downy 
headed, sniffing thing in a night-dress, and at others she 
saw a fair-haired, firm-limbed stripling in a Robin Hood 
suit. It was very perplexing because it seemed as if 
he had grown up after all. Kissy liked the stripling 
Peter best, the pudgy night-gowned Peter seemed so 
woefully independent. How could any mother bear to 
see a baby, who didn’t even know how to blow his own 
nose, calmly playing dance music for the Water Babies, 
Little Women — Jo danced with Lord Fauntleroy — Gerty 
Flint, Ellen Montgomery, Mowgli, and Kim, and all the 
others. Though, of course, Mowgli and Kim did not 
dance. They looked on in pained silence and wondered 
how such foolishness could be. But they liked the 
brilliant hangings of the Christmas-tree, and the sharp- 
snapping crackers filled them with delight. 

Dick Heldar came, too, with Maisie. He was a tall, 
quiet, sad -eyed boy. He seemed rather as if he wanted 
to have his face washed, but that was because his right 
cheek was singed and smudged with gunpowder. 

The silk-clad pyjama Twin and Little Lord Fauntleroy 
looked rather supercilious at him at first — till Wendy 
primly chided them — because Dick was so funnily 
dressed. A little shallow collar and a black ribbon 
knotted in a bow — of all things ! A funny, many- 
pocket ed, braided jacket, a nether garment which was 
too long to be a pair of knickerbockers, and much too 


264 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

short to be real trousers — he reminded Kissy of those 
illustrations in the “ Sunday at Home ” volumes that 
smell of mildew and camphor. 

But Kissy’s heart went out to him, in spite of his 
funny clothes ; there was something in his eyes that 
foretold the man he was to become. “ If only the Red- 
Haired Girl had come into the story when she was a 
child,” thought Kissy, “ I’d have invited her to-night, 
and I’d have made Dick kiss her under the mistletoe, I 
would ! ” And she looked at Maisie vengefully and was 
glad to see how unsightly the child was, in spite of her 
beautiful eyes and hair, in the ugly scallopped Victorian 
frock and the white cotton pantalettes that reached her 
ankles. She need not really have worn such horrid clothes, 
but that was the way Kissy saw her — she hated Maisie. 

Gerty Flint and Ellen Montgomery were rather a trial. 
They were so horribly and unchildishly virtuous, they 
would give away their nicest crackers, and Gerty espe- 
cially insisted on drawing attention to the beauty of the 
star-pierced sky, visible through the open top of the 
window, when everybody else wanted to enjoy snap- 
dragon. Ellen Montgomery made Kissy horribly un- 
comfortable because of the sorrowful way she gazed at 
Jim when, dressed as Santa Claus, he distributed the 
presents from the Christmas-tree. 

“ Can this deception be right ? ” she seemed to be 
saying as she reproachfully glanced from Jim to Kissy 
and then at the joyous faces of the Water Babies, who 
had each been given a silver-plated clockwork submarine. 
It was with the greatest relief that Kissy heard one of 
the maids announce that Mr. Van Brunt had come to 
fetch Miss Ellen, and a few minutes later heard the cart 
creak away into the distance bearing a happy girl, for 
Kissy’s parting gift had been a morocco-bound copy of 
“ French Self-Taught in Fifty-Two Lessons,” and six 
pairs of white stockings. 


—WHO TRAVELS ALONE 265 

Another awkward moment was when Maisie grabbed 
all Dick’s presents, and Wendy called her a selfish little 
prig. Dick turned very white and blew out his nostrils ; 
you could see by the bulge in his side-pockets that his 
fists were clenched. 

“ She’s not,” he growled truculently, “ I like her Jto 
have ’em ” ; and Wendy, in the face of his anger, meekly 
subsided and humbly said, “ I was only joking, Dick 
dear.” She said the “ dear ” in a 'whisper, but Maisie 
heard it and made a face. “ Cat in the manger,” thought 
Kissy, but then her attention was attracted elsewhere 
by the frightened howls of the youngest Darling child. 
He was terrified because Alice, imagining herself to be 
still in Wonderland, had started one of her queer grow- 
ing tricks. She was sprouting up and up, till she was 
able to sit down on the tall step-ladder as if it was a 
stool and unhook the toys from the topmost branches 
of the towering Christmas-tree. It was an impressive 
sight. However, when Kissy and Wendy had pacified 
the frightened child everybody found great enter- 
tainment in watching Alice shrink and expand, and 
all agreed that it would be awfully handy to have 
Alice in the house in case of fire, or to reach the top 
shelf of the store-cupboard in the strawberry- jam 
season. 

And then after more dancing and more games that 
included postman’s-knock, general-post, musical-chairs, 
with a grand “ Sir Roger de Coverley ” to end up with, 
led by Kissy and Jim (now dressed in his own clothes 
once more), came the bustle of departure. 

Strange nurses arrived and one or two sun -burned 
colonial -looking uncles, who wanted the presents to be 
tied up and made into parcels. Of course there was not 
sufficient string and brown paper to go round, and 
jubilant small children were, therefore, able to gloat 
over their treasures all the w r ay home in the cab instead 


266 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

of having them hidden away ever so long because of the 
unreasonableness of grown-ups. 

Only two of the children were not “ fetched.” Even 
Maisie was called for by an elderly unpleasant -looking 
shrew, who sniffed at the presents her charge had 
received and grumbled something about “ more litter 
to look after.” When this woman put Maisie’s little 
pork-pie hat on her head she snapped the elastic so 
viciously that Maisie nearly cried, nearly — not quite ; 
after all Maisie wasn’t one of the crying sort, although 
she was a little beast in most ways. 

The two who were not “ sent for ” were Dick Heldar 
and Peter Pan. Peter, after playing an enchanting 
“ Good-bye, thank you for a lovely time ” on his pipe, 
gave the thimble back to Kissy, who again returned it 
to him, for keeps this time, and fluttered out of the 
window. 

Dick shook hands with a very independent air and 
marched out of the house all alone, with his hands in 
his pockets and no overcoat, which was very disquieting 
to Kissy, for the very moment he passed the threshold 
the beautiful night turned to cold and damp fogginess — 
poor Dicky. 

And then came the best part of all the dream. 

Jim and Kissy walked with slow dignity up their 
wide shallow-stepped stairs, up and up, and along broad 
passages till they came to the enchanting nurseries 
where white-clad nurses had already put Denise and 
the baby to bed. 

Jack was still in the bathroom, having obtained the 
inestimable privilege of five minutes more in order to 
swim some china animals — frogs that were bigger than 
the swans and ducks, and a lobster that was as small 
as the frogs — in the big porcelain bath. 

He was a very damp-headed little boy, and his small 
pyjamas were thoroughly soaked. So Kissy, slipping 


—WHO TRAVELS ALONE 267 

on an all-enveloping waterproof apron over her party 
frock, dried him and changed his suit. But it was Jim 
who “ piggy-backed ” him into the night-nursery and 
dropped him on the bed. “ Hear me my prayers, 
Mumsie,” said Jack, and he knelt upon the brass-railed 
bed and cuddled his head in Kissy’s neck. 

“ Pragod,” he said in a hushed whisper, “ bless mother 
and father and Mopsie and baby and Nana and Marne zel 
and Whiskers and all of us, and make me a good little 
boy, for Chr — oh, and make father take us to the circus 
as well as the pantomime, thank you — for Christsake, 
Amen ! ” 

“ Father,” he cried, as he snuggled back into the bed 
and Kissy drew the clothes up over him, “ you will 
take us to both, won’t you ? ” Then his face fell. “ I 
say, p’raps it wasn’t cricket to ask God to make you 
... I didn’t think of that. Shall I get up and ask 
him to unmake you ? ” 

Jim and Kissy laughed. “ No, old chap,” said Jim, 
“ you see, as it happens, I’ve already got the tickets ! ” 

“ For both ? ” 

“ For both ! ” 

“ Oh, I say, father, you are a brick — and so’s mother. 
Bend over. I want to hug you together.” 

In the armchair Kissy stirred and sighed. It was a 
sigh of happiness and of full contentment. 

Then the scene changed again. 

Jim and Kissy were on a balcony overlooking the 
damp darkness of a wood ; it was a summer night and 
it had been raining, overhead a sulky moon slipped 
sullenly behind a cloud. 

Seizing Kissy’s hand Jim bent and passionately kissed 
her palm, then he held it to his forehead and over his 
closed eyes, which were burning hot. Solicitously she 
leaned above him, caressing with her free hand the short 
crisp hairs at the back of his head, but before she could 


268 


THE BROKEN LAUGH 

formulate it his voice interrupted the question that was 
gathering on her lips. 

“ My dearest dear,” he whispered in muffled tones, 
“ my dearest dear ... I am so thankfully glad that 
you cared to marry me.” 

Then Whiskers — not the sedate, grandfatherly Whis- 
kers of the dream, but the youthful, slipper-chewing, 
impertinently humorous little fellow, who lay by the 
no longer roaring stove in the smoking-sitting-room of 
the Little House — opened one eye and rolled it inquir- 
ingly about ; he stretched and yawned — “ ahaaaah ” — 
showing an arched pink tongue and ivory white teeth 
in a varnished black-roofed cavern ; he sighed pro- 
foundly, as if to say, “ This is a weary life, my brothers, 
but one must get through it somehow,” and then, open- 
ing the other eye, became very much awake. 

Awake and indignant. The room was dark and cold. 
No wonder, since the last ashes were even then crumbling 
to white ash on the floor of the stove. Surely it was 
long past milk-time and, judging by internal rumblings, 
even past bone-time, too. 

Faintly, in the big armchair, Kissy’s form was dis- 
cernible. A very unresponsive form thought Whiskers, 
with his head on one side. He leaned his chin on her 
knee and nudged her without result ; next he tried 
more roughly to attract her attention with a clumsily 
frantic paw, and finding that even then Kissy did not 
move, jumped on to her lap with a loud “ woof,” and — 
of all forbidden things — began to lick her face. 

Kissy sat up stiffly, and dodging Wfliiskers’ affectionate 
tongue, patted and hugged him. “Oh, Scallywag,” she 
reproachfully said, “ couldn’t I have had just five 
minutes more ? ” 

Whiskers woofed a decided “ no,” bone-time was bone- 
time, there could be no trifling with that ; so Kissy 
was obliged to rouse her numbed limbs, switch on the 


—WHO TRAVELS ALONE 2(59 

light and depart kitchenwards for more fuel for the 
stove, Whiskers’ bones, and the boiled egg that was to 
be her Christmas supper. But before she left the room 
she paused before the mantelpiece and looked tenderly 
into Jim’s eyes. 

“ My darling,” she said, “ we’ve had a lovely Christ- 
mas,” and then — unconsciously echoing the tones of the 
children — “ thank you for a splendid time.” 


CHAPTER IX 
The Knitting Girl 

I 

It was at the end of February that Jeanne Degrief died 
of the double pneumonia that had been treated as a 
“ simple chill ” by the timorous and incompetent family 
doctor. 

Twenty -four hours before the end the man realized, 
too late, the gravity of his patient’s case, and then 
multiplying ineffectual remedies, which at that time 
were so many useless tortures, he rendered her last 
hours hideous with his panic-stricken ministrations. 

After the death of his wife Degrief wallowed com- 
placently in the depths of self-pity. Wrapped in a large 
frock-coat that may have belonged to some gigantic 
grandparent, a white lawn evening tie emphasizing the 
Latin correctness of his woe, he sat hour after hour 
staring at the polished-steel handle of the stove-lid, only 
rousing himself to carefully feed the blaze. Often he 
laboured at his dusty, rarely used desk, from the pigeon- 
holes of which the yellowing papers of past and aban- 
doned schemes of fortune projected raggedly, writing 
to distant and half-forgotten acquaintances. In these 
letters his motherless children and broken career were 
dwelt upon with unctuous pathos. 

An ageless, countrified aunt, who seemed to have been 
left over from the horde of rustily black relations that 
attended the painful funeral rites, took up her abode 
in the house, evolved stop-gap cooking and sketchy 
house-cleaning. She was assisted by Anna, who 

270 


THE KNITTING GIRL 271 

“ showed the places of things ” and “ the way little 
mother did them.” 

Kissy, who had made the children’s mourning frocks, 
continued to “ do ” the family mending. For a few 
days, regretfully abandoning the beloved Little House, 
she sat, in infinite moral discomfort, on the other side 
of the stove that held Degriefs gaze. 

Holding him morally responsible for his wife’s death, 
she hated the man with inexpressible violence. His 
first noisy expressions of grief had made her feel sick. 
Now his apathy, broken by conventional bouts of 
despair, filled her with contempt. It particularly ex- 
asperated her that he did not understand this, that he 
should be blind to her cold aloofness, and heedless of 
her monosyllabic comments. Degrief seemed to take 
it for granted that Kissy was immensely sorry for him, 
and she resented this all the more because she was not 
sorry. She was filled with, an overwhelming pity for 
little Anna. For the poor woman who had gone out 
of an infinitely sordid life in an infinitely sordid manner. 
For the smaller children whose education was henceforth 
to be abandoned to the caprices of their father’s unstable 
temper. For the man himself she had nothing but 
resentful anger, and while he recounted for the manyth 
time the story of his life “ 'with Jeanne ” and how he 
had “ worked and striven for her in the face of great 
odds and unbelievable ill-luck,” Kissy jabbed her darning 
needle through the sock she Was mending and ardently 
regretted that it was not the man himself she was 
stabbing. 

“ Why didn’t he die ? ” her thoughts asked angrily 
while Degrief was minutely describing to her the alle- 
gorical broken column he wished to place on the tomb 
of the poor little one. “ The kiddies needed her ; 
he's no good to them — or any one,” she added, thinking 
of Jim and the abandoned timber-yard. 


272 


THE BROKEN LAUGH 

Degrief had practically ceased to go there, except on 
Saturday to look over the pay-roll. 

Kissy knew that most of the salaries had been reduced. 
A brother of Charlotte’s who worked there had come to 
his sister with bitter tales about the Degrief manage- 
ment. “ If Monsieur Crighton could only once see ! ” 
was the cry in the yard and in the offices; and Kissy, 
grateful to the men for their belief in Jim, returned 
two-thirds of the money Degrief was obliged to send her 
each week to the workmen and clerks whose pay had 
been cut down. She knew that it would have been 
Jim’s wish that none of his employees should suffer by 
his absence, but it did not occur to her that he would 
have hated to know that she was assuming the responsi- 
bility of continuing his own generous theories and employ- 
ing to that end the money that he had considered 
necessary to her comfort. 

Till now Kissy had not broken into the five thousand 
francs Jim had given to her before their attempted 
evasion. She considered it hardly her own and held it 
as trust money. 

The household bills, thanks to Charlotte’s experienced 
marketing, and Kissy’s agreement to the Walloon 
woman’s disinterested notions of rigid economy, were 
absurdly low despite the ever-increasing prices of house- 
hold commodities. They lived on “ war dishes ” — 
economical makeshift concoctions ; and conscientiously 
tried all the cooking receipts distributed with various^ 
grain and other animal foods for human beings by the 
American Commission for Relief in Belgium. 

Hominy cakes and fritters, sweet-corn croquettes, pan- 
cakes, together with eggs in every conceivable manner 
of making, were the staple diet of the three women in 
the Little House. Only on Sundays, because it had 
always been Jim’s favourite dish, and Kissy felt that 
somehow she was pleasing him by eating it, did thick 


THE KNITTING GIRL 278 

round steaks, juicily and richly red, with crisp, brown, 
fried potatoes, make an appearance on the table that 
was always laid for two, with the flowers and the silver 
and the dainty napery that Jim had always been accus- 
tomed to, and that Kissy delighted in with never- 
failing appreciation. 

The buckwheat cake and Quaker Oats regimen 
seemed to suit the Little House. Kissy was perhaps, 
though no cooking in the world could have altered that, 
paler and slimmer than when Jim was sent to Germany, 
but Charlotte and Fina were the walking representations 
of the “ after-taking ” photographs of Purple Pills for 
Pallid Persons, and Fina was bourgeoning from gawky 
girlhood into a tall, firm-breasted, round-armed Amazon, 
with hard, red cheeks and the bright-eyed self-possession 
that comes from a calm and comfortable stomach. 

Therefore, when, a few months after his wife’s death, 
Degrief asked Kissy if she could “ arrange herself ” to 
wait for his return from a fortnight’s visit to the country 
in order to “ settle up accounts,” she replied very will- 
ingly that she could certainly do so. Degrief cheerfully 
departed with the antique aunt, the three children, a 
large assortment of baskets, bundles, and cardboard 
boxes by the snorting and sooty tram vicinal which was 
man’s insult to the marvellous purity of the spring morn- 
ing. And Kissy, who had been to pull up Felix’s socks 
and retie the little girls’ hair-ribbons for the last time, 
returned peacefully, with the happy sense of duty done, 
to the calm quiet of the Little House, to clean her rusty 
knitting-needles and pick up dropped stitches in prevision 
for “ next winter.” 

n 

“ Scallywag,” said Kissy, “ if you must jump on me, 
please don’t jump on my tummy 1 ” 

“ Woman-creature on hind legs/' answered Scallywag- 

s 


274 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

Whiskers, “ if you persistently refuse to throw that stick 
you are holding into the water for me to swim after. 
I’ll jolly well thump you wherever I jolly well please I ” 

Kissy thereupon threw the stick, and Whiskers with 
a gigantic jump and a proportionate splash launched 
himself after it. It was in the lake of the Bois de la 
Cambre — bathing and fishing not allowed; but the 
keepers knew Kissy and turned indulgent backs on her 
infringement of by-laws. 

Whiskers — he had grown into a respectable-sized, 
rough-haired terrier, with a dash of mongrel (that he 
ignored) about his ears to make him human — swam 
blandly, pretending he could not see the bit of stick 
that floated too close to the shore for his taste. 
When he reached the centre of the lake he brought his 
helm hard over and, veering, began to swim in wide 
circles with an anxious “ where-the-devil-can-that-bit- 
o’- wood -be ” expression on his humorous countenance, 
while Kissy on the bank shouted vain and indignant 
directions at him. 

When he was tired he narrowed his circles on the 
homeward track, and at last with a great air of surprise 
and triumph pounced on the bobbing morsel of wood. 

“ Clever boy — good dog ! ” extolled Kissy. “ Now 
drop it, drop it, sir, I say.” 

But Whiskers cocked an ironic eye in her direction 
and gallumphed off, giving his celebrated imitation of 
a playful kid, while Kissy, vainly cracking her whip, 
whistled and commanded. 

“ You need a master, you Scallywag you,” she told 
him later when finally he consented, already dried and 
fluffy from the warm June sun, to crouch d la Trafalgar 
Square lion — another of his celebrated impersonations — 
and pant exhaustedly with half a mile of pink tongue 
propped flutteringly over two wondrously white lower 
fangs. 


THE KNITTING GIRL 275 

“ He’s been gone nearly a year, Scally,” she said, 
“ nearly a year, little doggums, and we can’t never not 
get used to it, can us ? ” 

But Whiskers refused to consider the question ; he 
had pricked up his rather too big but so expressive ears, 
and, sitting back on his haunches, looked eagerly into 
the distance, his wet, black nose quivering in its pink- 
and-white halo — then with a sudden, excited bark he 
dashed off. 

“ ’Nuther squ’rl,” thought Kissy, watching his vain 
endeavour to climb the smooth trunk of an elm-tree at 
the top of the lawn that slopes down to the top end of 
the lake. 

Squirrels were his joy and despair. They were so 
exciting to hunt, and so embarrassing to dispose of when 
by chance they happened to get caught ; he generally 
nipped a little bit of fur out of their tails or off their 
backs with his lips, and then let them go, somewhat 
piebald in appearance, but not really any the worse for 
their compulsory tonsure. 

This time the little red fellow was safely in the top 
fork of the tree even before Whiskers reached the foot, 
and was in no danger from Whiskers’ ferocious bounds 
and scrabblings as the smooth bark slipped under his 
paws. In due time he gave it up as a bad job and 
returned slowly to Kissy with a well-assumed air of 
indifference. 

“ Didn’t ’urns catch de bunnies ? ” she asked. 

Whiskers grunted contemptuously and, stretching 
himself on his back with his four legs extended stiffly 
in the air, spoke shortly as he looked at her over his 
shoulder in his upside-down position. The whites of 
his eyes were very expressive. 

“ What bunny ? ” he said. “ Don’t talk slush to me — 
better get the tick out of the soft, under inner part of 
my right back leg ! Hurry up, please ! ” 


276 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

Kissy obeyed. 

It was a nasty pink-bodied, already bloated -looking 
tick, and she got it out cleverly without breaking off the 
head. Whiskers congratulated her, sat up, and con- 
sented to a little quiet conversation. 

“ Just think, Scallywag,” said Kissy, “ s' jpose all this 
war just wasn’t ! S’pose he was coming up from the 
works to take us out to lunch ? Any minute he might 
come over the top of the hill up there, walking with 
great big strides that make his coat crease over the 
hips at the back. He’d be wearing a straw hat and a 
khaki gabardine suit, and he’d come right down here, 
and you’d jump all over him, and he’d be awfully 
angry, but not really, and he’d kiss me and throw 
sticks for you, and then we’d go to Groenendael and 
have ” 

“ Chickens 1 ” said Whiskers. 

“ If you like,” conceded Kissy, “ and something cool 
to drink in a big glass jug, with squashed strawberries 
and bits of cucumber peel and ” 

“ Sugar,” said Whiskers, who knew more than a thing 
or two. 

“ And we’d walk home in the shade of the forest and 
perhaps take an awful long time over it, and it ’ud be 
dusk before we’d get home. We’d have nice cold 
showers, and then dinner ” 

“ That’s right,” interrupted Whiskers, “ never too 
much eating for me.” 

“ And then we’d sit on the terrace like we did that 
night, and . . . and ” 

“ Don’t make me damp in spots,” said Whiskers, and 
then, looking into Kissy’s eyes, suddenly felt compelled 
to lick her face. 

“ Sc — Sc — Scally-boy,” said Kissy convulsively. 

“ That's aw’right ! But what a beastly taste 1 ” said 
Whiskers. 


THE KNITTING GIRL 


277 


III 

At the time of Degrief’s departure Kissy was anxiously 
awaiting news of Jim. Till now agony-column messages 
and newsless dummy notes, which, arriving via agents 
in Holland, brought at least the consolation of his hand- 
writing, had reached her with irregular frequency. In 
the bustle of preparation for the children’s voyage Kissy 
had little leisure to count the days, but in the monotony 
of the hours that followed she pored carefully over a 
red-pencilled calendar and a somewhat smudgy diary. 
After a great deal of finger-arithmetic, and a few doubt- 
ful-looking division sums on the blotting-pad, she was 
able to establish that “ on an average ” she had received 
some kind of message at least once a week since Jim’s 
departure, while now ten days had passed without sign 
of life. 

The English papers were not coming in either. Kissy 
had not seen a Times for certainly three weeks. Three 
weeks during which every day there ought to have been 
a message for her — unless, unless, of course, the unthink- 
able had come to pass. 

This lull happened to be due to the fact that Jim had 
been unexpectedly and unusually quickly released from 
the training-camp and sent “ somewhere in France.” 
He was obliged, in consequence, to reorganize his round- 
about methods of communication with Kissy. Tricky 
work, which took time. The delay worried Jim less 
than it should have done, because he imagined she would 
at least be keeping track of him through the unchanging 
line in the Times agony-column. He could not know 
that the Belgian news-smuggler was working out “ two 
months with forced work ” in a German prison for having 
been caught selling “ undeclared ” butter and potatoes 
at extortionate and un-Zenlral rates. 


278 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

Kissy, therefore, had every latitude to imagine the 
worst, and her imagination, which at all times was 
prolific, painted fearful pictures that drew mauve hollows 
under her eyes and washed her lips to a pale pink line. 

She could see the collapsing aeroplane as it crumpled 
against the blue sky and fell swiftly to earth. Sometimes 
a tiny black atom detached itself from the curveting 
machine and fell, apart, hideously alone. But generally 
it was only when she reached the burning wreckage on 
the ground that she saw all that remained of that which 
had been her lover. Even if he had survived the 
common risks that duty had demanded of him, there 
were so many other horrors which might have come to 
pass. The Zeppelin raids ! Had he been killed by one 
of those obscene monsters that sometimes glided, at 
dusk, ominously over Brussels, heading northwards 
towards the coast ? Or had his splendid body been torn 
to infinite gory morsels in a munition-factory explosion ? 
Or, since it was true that in England the streets at 
night were all unlighted, had he not most possibly been 
crushed to unhuman shapelessness by the ignominious 
motor-buses that skid menacingly through London 
thoroughfares ? 

Death was everywhere, in every frightful and imagin- 
able form. As the days grew into weeks, Kissy knew 
that Jim was dead. She knew , and yet, perhaps, she 
did not know. She hoped. At least that intangible 
consolation was left. 

She hoped, as those who pass their lives in hoping 
hope for the return of the missing fisher or the Arctic 
adventurer; for the resurrection of the buried miner; 
for the survivor of the Atlantic wreck. She hoped with 
the incredulous despair of the mother who grovels, her 
child damp with its death sweat in her arms, at the feet 
of Our Lady of Lourdes, and prays frenziedly for the 
impossible miracle. 


THE KNITTING GIRL 279 

She rose, ate, walked, and lay in her bed at night, 
accomplishing the daily round of little tasks with 
mechanical precision. 

While Fina spent long hours waiting outside the 
Commission for Relief shops or the Magasins d'ali - 
mentation for the tiny doles of rice, tinned goods, and 
dripping, Kissy helped Charlotte with the housework. 
The Little House must be kept spick and span, since, 
in spite of all, hope bade Kissy dream still of the in- 
finitely remote possibility of Jim’s return. The gloves 
she wore while she polished the silver and patiently 
dusted, were to keep her hands as Jim always wished 
to see them. With what jealous tenderness did she set 
his old dressing-room to rights, and brush and fold and 
rearrange the garments that hung so emptily behind the 
cupboard doors ; rough tweeds or fine raiment that still 
were scented with the mild aroma of his Havanas and 
the more vivid odour of the shaving-soap that, with its 
fringe of dry froth, was hardening in the cushion-shaped 
china jar on the washstand. 

And yet, even as she worked, hope would abandon 
her and she would dream of crawling into a dark hole 
like a sick animal to die, her eyes tight closed, her ears 
stoppered by pressing palms, sinking into oblivion grate- 
fully because she could no longer possibly bear to live. 
It was unbelievable that she had borne this silent soli- 
tude so long. Now at this moment the end of all endur- 
ance had come, and if this day passed without news. . . . 
But it passed and night came, and night passed also 
and the days that followed, and still Kissy found that 
she endured. It seemed to her prodigious and incredible. 
That the calm moments of belief in his return were 
always followed with profounder moments of despair 
was inevitable. 

One afternoon in the Avenue Louise she made the 
acquaintance of a painted little lady of the half- world. 


280 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

Whiskers, resenting the nose-thrusting impertinence of 
her tiny toy-terrier, had terrorized the small goggle- 
eyed and hairy insect by growling at it, so that it fled, 
yelping distressfully, to its mamma. Kissv followed to 
apologize, and then, finding an amiable little empty- 
headed simpleton, who showed no desire to patronize 
or snub, had gossiped a little, rather surprised to hear 
the sound of her own voice in conversation. It was so 
long since she had spoken to any one but the servants 
or the tradespeople. 

It was not a very uplifting or abstruse conversation. 
They did not discuss the greater problems of existence. 
They did not even find it necessary to explain their 
little Ego, accepting each other with the simple un- 
curiosity of children, not even, like children, asking 
“ What’s your father ? ” 

They spoke of the weather and the price of butter. 
Of the attractiveness of Earle Williams, the vitagraph 
actor. Of clothes and boots, and the difficulty of pre- 
venting ladders in silk stockings. They exchanged 
cooking recipes, and the little lady offered to let Kissy 
have the paper pattern of an Empire chemise that was 
really trds becoming. Kissy refused, thanking her all 
the same, and explained about the knitting. The other 
nodded her head backwards with uplifted chin, and 
remarked sagely that she saw that Kissy was a femme 
trds serieuse , which does not quite mean the same thing 
as a “ serious woman ” in English. Walking slowly and 
criticizing severely all the criticizable women they met, 
they strolled towards the busy Porte de Namur, where 
the cinematograph theatres, the cafes , the Bodegas, and 
the flower-girls abound. Then it somehow happened 
that, passing the Toison d’Or tea-room, they invited 
each other to tea. 

It was the first time since the war that Kissy had, 
as she said, “ been anywhere ” in the city. 


THE KNITTING GIRL 281 

She expected a quiet and decorous English teashop, 
with muslin-aproned waitresses officiating with an air 
of decayed gentility ; stewed tea, stale bread and butter, 
served in the sedate atmosphere of a dentist’s waiting- 
room. Instead of which, after having followed Made- 
moiselle Zizi up the carpeted outer stairs that led from 
the pavement between evergreen sentinels in pots, and 
through double swing-doors, she was dazzled by a blaze 
of lights and dazed by the love plaint of violins. A young 
negro in scarlet and blue, buttoned and laced with gold, 
masterfully appropriated their umbrellas. A Knight of 
the Garter in silk stockings conducted them to a table. 

“ Not a bad little place, is it ? ” said Mademoiselle 
Zizi, skinning off her gloves and importantly polishing 
her nails on the tablecloth. 

But Kissy and Whiskers — very subdued and his tail 
between his legs — were too busy trying to “ reseize 
themselves,” as the French say, to answer. 

A waiter in evening dress, with gold ropes on his 
shoulders, presented a tray covered with an infinite 
variety of cakes that were not — remarked the printed 
notice — made with flour (but looked just as if they had 
been). They lay invitingly in tempting rows. Eclairs 
dribbling cream, glazed petits fours that sweated sugar 
varnish. Tiny china saucers of riz d V Imperatrice, jars 
of cinnamon-coloured jelly or chocolate cream, oozy 
meringues, and airy mounds of snow-white cream dabbed 
on golden saucers of speckled caramel. 

“ Dear friend,” said Mademoiselle Zizi, “ will you not 
help yourself ? ” and then with quiet ostentatiousness 
she chided the waiter because there were no more choux 
d la noisette. The man tightened the curve of his 
obsequious back, and reminded Mademoiselle that usually 
Mademoiselle arrived earlier. 

The chocolate was brought with infinite ceremonial 
and poured into fragile cups. Then the obstructing 


282 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

bodies of the attendants were removed and Kissy was 
able to look round. 

Brilliant but wisely shaded lights shone from ceilings 
and walls and were festooned round the cornice. Acutely 
gleaming silver. Flowers in crystal vases that caught 
each ray and reflected it dazzingly. Palms towered in 
graceful curves. The legs of the furniture sank deeply 
into the thick pile of the carpet. At the end of the 
long, narrow room scarlet-coated musicians tormented 
and caressed their instruments behind a bank of rose 
and white azaleas. 

The tables were surrounded by numbers of charming 
creatures. Exquisite young men accompanied young 
ladies, who smiled with vivid and disdainful lips, and 
whose softly shaded eyes were beautiful until one saw 
reflected in their depth the dreary emptiness of their lives. 

They wore wonderful clothes with an air of habitude. 
Furs that had the unmistakable opulence of “ this year’s 
cut,” jewels that seemed to have come straight from 
Wolfers’ sesamic windows. Speckless boots which radi- 
antly caught and reflected the light on their varnished 
surface, shoes of dull doeskin tied with enormous bows 
of ribbon, above which the slim ankle shone through its 
cobweb silken stocking, fragile as a priceless porcelain. 
White gloves gleaming with the cold air of statuary. 
Hair marcelled by the best hairdresser gleamed demurely 
under the smartest millinery of Brussels, and seated in 
sinuously nonchalant poses, sipping their excellent Pekoe 
with the slightly disgusted air that is their acme of 
smartness, they gazed at nothing with wrapt and bored 
attention. 

It was impossible to sit in this typically tango-tea 
interior and credit the fact that, outside in the street, 
in a lull between the roar of the trams and the rumble of 
the traffic, the intent ear would be able to perceive the 
distant thud of the cannon. 


THE KNITTING GIRL 283 

But no one wanted to remember. The spick-and-span 
youths could have nothing in common with their tattered 
brothers in the trenches, nor their useless womenkind 
with the plain-frocked nurses at the Front ; and Kissy, 
hypnotized by the lights, the scents, the warm cosiness 
of the hour, forgot, too, and, dissecting an oozy eclair 
with her wide, three-pronged silver fork, ate delightedly 
and sipped her chocolate with appreciation, gazing over 
the cup-brim with wide-open eyes that dwelt with eager 
joy on the meretricious luxury of the scene. 

The clink of china and rattle of spoons on saucers 
made a pleasant homelike music above the sickly sobbing 
of the corded instruments, and Kissy did not perceive 
the subdued note of hysteria that underlay the decorous 
calm of this half- world tea-party. She was enjoying 
herself with simple thoroughness, and scolded Whiskers, 
who pressed against her legs and laid his chin on her 
knees, blinking at her with anxious eyes, quivering in 
discomfort at every snarl and yelp of the small surfeited 
lap-dogs that surrounded him. 

“ Let’s get out of this,” he seemed to say, “ back to 
the knitting and bread and butter — it smells bad here, 
and I want my darning-ball ! ” 

But Kissy only patted his head with a careless hand, 
and scolded him because he refused the milk Made- 
moiselle Zizi poured for him in her own saucer. 

“ But one is really very well here,” she told her new 
acquaintance. “ I will come again one of these days.” 

“ I hope it well, chore Madame ,” politely replied 
Mademoiselle Zizi, adding ceremoniously, “ and I hope 
also that I shall have the pleasure of again meeting 
you.” 

“ But certainly, the pleasure will be all for me,” was 
Kissy’s correctly Gallic answer ; “ but will you not do 
me the honour to come one day and pass the after — ” 
Then Kissy’s voice trailed off into an inarticulate 


284 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

murmur, and Mademoiselle Zizi, who had been eagerly 
dwelling on her words, turned her head and followed 
Kissy’s gaze towards the door. 

The blue-and-scarlet negro was bowing obsequiously, 
loaded under a pile of grey military greatcoats, as with 
a loud clanking and clattering a couple of German staff 
officers, accompanied by an aviatik “ hero ” decorated 
with the ubiquitous Iron Cross, made their way into the 
tea-room. 

They were tall, strong men. Cruel-jawed, steady- 
eyed creatures. They looked around with a suavely 
insolent stare of possessive appraisement. Probably the 
elder men were doing the honours of Brussels — of that 
violated capital of an outraged country — to the younger 
officer, who seemed, despite the fresh neatness of his 
town uniform, to reek still of the battle-front. There 
was a hard slimness about his body that spoke of long- 
tensed muscles, and a gravity of eyes and mouth that 
fearfully reminded Kissy of Jim. 

She rose to her feet and stared round uncertainly. 
What an extraordinary, garish place to find oneself in ! 
Painted lips and dyed hair. Equivocal exquisites of 
both sexes. Cakes, sweets, tea, American drinks, Egyp- 
tian cigarettes, music, laughter ; and there, in the midst 
of so many useless luxuries, she had wasted precious 
knitting moments in warmth and safety and comfort, 
while Jim was somewhere up in the damp, freezing air 
on a little humming motor thing, with wings that might 
smash to matchwood any moment. Also she, Kissy, 
who counted every penny of the money she held in 
trust, had been guzzling cakes while children starved 
for bread. The painted stranger by her side had offered 
Whiskers milk, the milk that babies were dying for the 
want of. But Whiskers had refused it. He was an 
honest gentleman, while Kissy felt herself branded as 
a traitor and a cad. She deserved to be stared at by 


THE KNITTING GIRL 285 

those grey-coated devils, and to be classed by them as 
one of the pleasures they had come to purchase or 
covet. 

Red with shame, she plunged her arms into her coat, 
tearing the worn lining in the sleeves. She did not 
pause to reflect that, within their particular limitations, 
the tea-drinkers were probably honest women who would 
have shuddered to traffic with the enemy. She felt 
suddenly as if she was back in the house of the rue 
Macabre, and nothing but instant flight was possible. 

She pushed a folded note for ten francs under her 
saucer, and without daring to meet the inquiring 
eyes that were gazing up at her, spoke blurtingly to 
Zizi. 

“ I beg your pardon,” she said, “ I must go. ... I 
did not know. ... I should not have come . . . the 
war, you understand . . . out there, they are dying 
. . . my man, he is la-bas . . . forgive me,” and with 
Whiskers stepping warily at her heels, she moved rapidly 
away between the crowded tables, her cheeks still 
crirnson, her eyes intent upon the door. 

Mademoiselle Zizi watched her exit with an amused 
expression, and calling for the bill paid it with Kissy’s 
note. 

“ Bien swr,” she said as she picked up her change, 
“ when one has but one man, one can afford to be serious 
. . . and patriotic,” she added as her eyes fell on the 
Germans who had installed themselves at the next table ; 
which sentiment did not, however, prevent her from 
rising with great dignity and sailing out of the place 
with a crinkled, disgusted nose and loftily tilted head 
when he of the Iron* Cross tentatively smiled in her 
direction. 

Kissy cried herself to sleep in the late winter dawn 
after the bitterest, loneliest night of the many that had 
passed since Jim had left. 


286 


THE BROKEN LAUGH 


IV 

Soon material worries joined forces with Kissy’s 
heartache. 

Degrief did not return. 

Having obtained passports to Holland for his children 
on the strength of a medical certificate, he proceeded 
safely and easily to slip over the border himself, having 
bought the complaisance of an underfed German N.C.O. 
and his men. 

He established himself and his offspring in La Haye 
and, posing as a Belgian refugee, lived in lazy comfort 
on Dutch charity. 

Kissy’s first thought was, “ How glad Jim will be to 
find himself rid of him.” She knew that her lover’s 
generosity would take no heed of the financial side of 
the question ; then was angrily revolted at the engineer’s 
dishonest selfishness, and lastly, learning that the German 
authorities had taken possession of the works, she 
realized with sorrow and dread the precarious position 
of the workmen who had been left in Degrief’s charge. 
Having refused to work for the Germans, they must 
either starve, since for months past the cost of living 
had not permitted the laying by of nest-eggs, or else 
they must apply for municipal help and charity, and 
then they would be at the mercy of German deportation. 

It was impossible for Kissy to bear that Jim’s workmen 
should be in trouble. Impulsively, without asking advice 
even of the unsentimental and sensible Charlotte, she 
distributed her five-thousand francs amongst them. 

“ It is all I have,” she said. “ Do that which you can 
to make it last, and try to find work.” 

Thereupon they kissed her hands, invoking the bless- 
ings of innumerable Saints and Virgins on her head, and 
Kissy actually thought they were grateful. When Char- 


THE KNITTING GIRL 28 T 

lotte heard of this through her brother, she was exces- 
sively and righteously angry. 

“ Monsieur would be furious that Madame is so 
foolish,” she grumbled. “ Madame had no business to 
denudj herself for folks like them ! Workpeople ! Bah , 
une sale race> Madame. I know it, me, I who married 
one. They think they have the right to everything, 
and when you can no longer give them it they turn 
upon you ! What will Madame do now that the shop 
is closed and that the money no longer comes ? ” 

“ I will make hats,” declared Kissy with dignity and 
an outward show of calm assurance that she did not 
feel. 

So the filet-and-lace blind of the little front ante- 
chamber window was drawn half-way up. Against the 
background of a dark Japanese screen, on a length of 
brocade that two years ago had formed part of Kissy’s 
prettiest theatre wrap, a large cloisonnS vase was tilted 
on its side. From the neck of this vase flowed, in comu- 
copic abundance, artificial roses of wonderful hues and 
velvety texture, Chantilly veils and ribbons so alluring 
that every passing woman must long to finger their 
slippery richness. , 

A neat second-hand brass plate bearing the concise 
and business-like word Modes was purchased at the 
Vieux Marche by Charlotte, who privately did not rely 
much on the financial success of this venture, but thought 
it “ would make no harm, and, in any case, it might 
occupy Madame.” Then, having prepared a few in- 
expensive and correspondingly uninspired models, Kissy 
one Monday morning donned the newest of her old 
black afternoon frocks, pulled up the blind by way of 
taking down the shutters, and sat down to wait for 
customers to pour in. 

The only people who even stopped for an instant in 
front of the window were various neighbours, who took 


288 


THE BROKEN LAUGH 

in the situation with wrathful eyes and disgusted noses. 
The mien of one lady, who manipulated a lorgnette with 
most amazing insolence, was so aggressively scornful 
that Kissy, peeping at her through an accidental tear 
in the screen, felt as if she had outraged every law of 
decency, and that in trying to earn a living she had 
become guilty of some unspeakable crime. 

The second day the first customer proved to be an 
elderly lady who wanted a bonnet. Kissy had no 
bonnets. Then the wife of a neighbouring butcher, with 
whom Kissy used to deal till she found it cheaper to 
buy at the Central Market, came in and behaved with 
vindictive unpleasantness. 

The third day a servant girl brought her Sunday hat 
to be retrimmed, and sneered at the result, which was 
too subdued to suit her sense of what was due to the 
company of her Sunday swain. 

On the fourth day an impertinent young man rang 
the bell and, getting past Charlotte and into the “ show- 
room ” on the plea that he was buying a hat for his 
sister, proceeded to tell Kissy that, for many mornings, 
he had seen her in the wood, and that — and that — and 
that . . . Kissy’s hurt stare disconcerted him, and he 
broke off lamely. 

The suspicious Charlotte made irruption : 

“ Does Madame know Mademoiselle the sister of this 
Monsieur ? ” she asked. 

Kissy said she did not. 

“ Then I, who know Mademoiselle by sight, will attend 
Monsieur,” lied Charlotte calmly. “ We have here the 
very hat that would do perfectly ! ” 

And a few minutes later the young man, stunned by 
Charlotte’s sternly business-like loquacity, sheepishly 
sallied forth with the bandbox he had not dared refuse 
dangling awkwardly against his legs. 

“Monsieur will take it with him,” Charlotte had 


THE KNITTING GIRL 289 

assured him menacingly. “ Our errand-boy is at the 
war, the horses of the delivery wagons were taken by 
the Boches, and we have no petrol for the motor-van.” 

Kissy meekly watched, amused, but a little frightened 
at the high-handedness of such proceedings. 

“ But you ought not to have charged him all that,” 
she demurred when Charlotte returned from banging 
the front door on the heels of the would-be philanderer. 

“ No ? And why not, then ? One sees well that 
Madame is not in the current of business ways. Also 
the young man had need of a lesson, and it is through 
the pocket that one punishes such as he ! ” Then, with 
a resigned shrug of the shoulders : “ I did for the best, 
me ! ” 

“ I know it well,” Kissy hastened to assure the 
aggrieved woman, “ and I am sure you have reason, 
but ” — she spoke a little wistfully — “ I would, all the 
same, have liked to see it worn by a real customer, by 
that smart lady with the lovely Greek profile who lives 
at No. 42, for example. It was our nicest model, you 
understand.” 

“ Well,” said Charlotte, as she watched Kissy put 
the currency notes into the glove-box that served as 
till, “Madame has realized enough there to purchase 
of sufficiency to create a dozen such models now.” 

But Charlotte reckoned without the very disagreeable- 
looking registered letter that arrived by the afternoon 
post. 

The landlord’s prim compliments, and would Monsieur 
J. Crighton — it was Jim who had signed the lease and 
made all arrangements — kindly look at item B of para- 
graph 3 of the agreement, and, in accordance with the 
convention expressed therein, proceed to remove all 
degrading (the letter did not actually use the expression 
“ degrading,” but it lurked between the lines) signs of 
commerce from the window of the premises he was 


290 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

occupying, situated at No. 30 Avenue Lepetit ; other- 
wise he (the landlord) would find himself compelled to 
take measures to protect his premises from the com- 
promising stigma of trade which had sullied their genteel 
privacy. 

The terrified Kissy, without even waiting to consult 
item B of paragraph 8, uptilted the vase and stood it 
back on its mantelpiece, gathered up the veils, the 
ribbons and the roses, folded the screen and the length 
of brocade, lowered the filet-lace blind to its accustomed 
height, replaced the guipure screens against the lower 
window-panes and unscrewed the brass plate with 
shaking hands that could hardly manipulate the screw- 
driver. Then she sat down to rest her trembling knees, 
and looked askance at Charlotte ! 

Charlotte twitched down the corners of her mouth, 
and with nervous fingers pleated up the hem of her 
blue-check apron. She, too, felt that there was some- 
thing vaguely awful and terrifying in the idea of 
“ measures ” being taken because of the famous item 
B of paragraph 3. She picked a couple of pins out of 
the carpet and asked if she should hide Madame’s work- 
box in the kitchen cupboard. The query made Kissy 
giggle ; it was a queer-sounding noise. 

“ Well, that is not necessary,” she said. “ I think 
that I have well the right to mend my own clothes and 
the linen of the house without risking the 4 measures ’ 
of Monsieur the landlord ! But the question remains 
now : What is one to do ? I know only how to make 
hats, and at present I may even not do that ! ” 

At the beginning of the winter Charlotte had dis- 
covered from a gossiping servant, who had been in 
Degriefs service and had heard him indiscreetly discuss- 
ing the matter with his wife, Kissy’s 'rue relationship 
to Jim ; but she kept that knowledge to herself, and 
the feeling that she was guarding Kissy’s secret roused 


THE KNITTING GIRL 291 

in the elderly servant’s heart a profound if undemonstra- 
tive affection for the mistress who was so kind and 
thoughtful of the comfort of those who worked for her. 
After Degrief’s departure, and Kissy’s quixotic gesture, 
she had resolved, on the strength of her comfortable 
savings-bank account, “ to care for Madame till Mon- 
sieur should return.” Nevertheless, it was just as well to 
know how the land lay, and with peasant prudence she 
withheld from either making reassuring promises or show- 
ing her hand ; she merely asked with apologetic curiosity : 

“ Madame has, then, no money at all ? ” 

“ But yes, but yes ! I have with these ” — Kissy in- 
dicated the glove-box “ at least five hundred and fifty 
or six hundred francs ! ” 

“ Then Madame must not torment herself. That is 
greatly sufficient for three — four months. Also perhaps 
Madame could find means to let Monsieur know.” 

“ I see not how I could do that,” said Kissy doubt- 
fully. “ How could I tell Monsieur all that has happened 
on a post card without attracting attention ? Monsieur 
said that I must write but of my health just so that he 
may see my writing and know that all is well. I would 
have to find some one going to Holland who would take 
a message and write there ; even then it would be diffi- 
cult to make Monsieur understand, and, besides, I know 
no one.” 

“ One could inquire ; no doubt with a little money 
one could find some one to manage it — I will occupy 
myself about it. In all cases Madame would certainly 
be glad to write to Monsieur — Men sur , there should be 
coals bought for the winter, and potatoes, but by then, 
after all, who knows if the war will not be terminated 
and Monsieur with us once more.” 

“ If only that could come to be ! ” sighed Kissy. 

“ But, of course, it might ! Any day now,” affirmed 
Charlotte with cheery optimism. 


292 


THE BROKEN LAUGH 


V 

Towards the end of July 1916 came the exciting visit 
of a friendly aeroplane, which flew one evening so low, 
so close to the roofs of Brussels, that it seemed to the 
soul -thrilled citizens that one could perceive the blur 
of the propeller, and the pale masks of two faces which 
leaned over and smiled — an illusion to which one clung 
firmly despite superior sneers and the logical reasonings 
of common sense. The uniforms the aviators wore were ; 
described even to the boots. The Belgians recognized 
the yellow and black or the green and red of Belgium ; 
the French cheered the red and blue of France, while 
Kissy, who stood on a pile of trunks in the attic of the 
Little House, her body half out of the skylight, knew 
that she saw the khaki of Jim’s uniform, and was certain 
that it was her lover who at last had come to bring hope 
and news. 

The cheers from the street rose faintly to the roof- 
top where she stood, a little far-away noise drowned by 
the roar of the motor and the screech and crash of the 
German shells which hissed past and burst with hap- 
hazard deviousness. Three times the aeroplane swooped 
over the Little House, the purring hum of its motor 
receding and reviving like the swelling roar of an autumn 
wind. Kissy’s heart, and the hearts of those who stood 
at the street-corner below, and sobbed as they cheered, 
stopped during the fleeting moment as it flashed over- 
head, black against the summer sky, yellow in the white 
flash of the searchlight, or a shadowy grey in the green 
blaze of the rockets that streaked the night and writhed 
back to earth, luminously reptilian in the darkness. 

Heedless of the dangers suggested by the bursting j 
shrapnels, the people of the city thronged the streets j 
and roof-tops. Little children in their night-clothes 


THE KNITTING GIRL 298 

mingled their acute treble with the graver hum of adult 
voices. Shops and cafis stood empty and unguarded 
while customers and servers crowded out in the streets. 
Heavy-bosomed housewives paused in the. process of 
washing-up, and waved rancid dish-cloths from kitchen 
windows. Slim-hipped, bare-necked women left bridge- 
tables and knitting parties to crowd on the balconies of 
sandstone palaces. The trams stopped while driver and 
passengers descended and stood staring in the centre of 
the street. Cripples in hospital wards groped for their 
crutches. The musicians at the Laiterie broke off their 
syncopated “ rag ” and joined the rush towards the 
open space between the trees, swelling the crowd that 
gazed skywards with hypnotic stare or smiled trium- 
phantly into each other’s eyes. 

The aeroplane vanished into space as swiftly as it 
came, with the suddenness of enchantment. There was 
one last rush of immense wings, a panting pause of the 
motor, and then, as if it had been gathering force, a 
crescendo of spluttering roars that triumphantly mocked 
the crash of the guns as, with a curving, upward rush, 
it sailed up over the trees away above the sombre mass 
of the forest. 

A few belated shrapnels exploded unnoticed, a 
smouldering chaplet of stars floated slowly earthwards, 
the hesitating rays of the searchlight continued for a 
few moments their restless probing, and then, with a 
final flicker, disappeared. In the streets and on bal- 
conies, crying, laughing, and exultant humans, drunken 
and light-headed with the excess of their emotion, 
capered and clowned, falling into each other’s arms, 
clasping hands, making dabbing futile movements at 
each other with hysterical fondness, uttering all the 
while inarticulate noises and commencing incoherent 
sentences that could neither be formed nor finished. 

And Kissy, on her roof-top, with wide-strained eyes 


294 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

and listening ears which continuously mistook the loud 
beating of her heart for the approaching throb of the 
returning aeroplane, remained crouching on the edge of 
the skylight till dawn broke, tinging the red-tiled roofs 
a misty mauve and dazzling her tired eyes with its 
magnificence. 


CHAPTER X 
From the Blue 

I 

She slept late into the day, Whiskers, who had cheered, 
dog fashion, with the best of ’em, curled companionably 
on the foot of the bed. So late that Fina had time 
to collect all the news of the neighbourhood and 
serve it, enlarged and commented, with the cup of 
tea and the slice of dry toast which was Kissy’s daily 
breakfast. 

“ Bien swr,” agreed Kissy when Fina had finished, 
“ I think that they must all the same come down some- 
where, these shells ! But one does not think of that 
in the excitement ! ” 

“ But, Madame, one says that the Boches fired 
expressly to frighten us and make us hide in the houses : 
they were so furious. The bombs that exploded in the 
street of the Hotel des Monnaies, the agent of police of 
the comer says, were aimed to burst at contact, which 
is a crime — though, bien sur , the Boches are not at one 
crime more or less — since those which are aimed at the 
* ary-o-plane ’ should be regulated to burst at distance. 
Madame should go and see the house ; the door all in 
pieces, the windows broken, and two people killed. 
There was blood everywhere, and an agent of the night 
rounds had an ear tom off, and a hole in his thigh into 
which one could put one’s fist. The vicinal tram will 
take Madame there in ten minutes. There are also other 
houses where damage was done, but no one killed that 
one knows. Only a horse in the stable of an auberge 

295 


296 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

on the Waterloo road. They say the roof is all taken 
off. Madame ought really to go. 3 9 

“ Thank you, no,” said Kissy, remembering the horrors 
of bombarded Mechlin. “ I have no wish to see such 
sights as I can so well imagine. Tell thy mother, little 
one, that for dinner we will have salade Litgeoise, beans 
and lard and potatoes . . . and perhaps a few onions 
for the taste.” 

“ There is yet enough to cut three or four slices of 
beef from the piece of yesterday.” 

“ Then we will have supper with that and a tin of 
sugar-corn.” 

“ Madame wishes croquettes or just plain com ? ” 

Kissy reflected ; to make croquettes one must add 
a little flour and a couple of eggs . . . eggs were at 
fifty-four centimes . . . black ruin . . . and then there 
was the beef, too ! 

“ Just plain,” was her decision. 

“ Very well, Madame,” but Fina sniffed a little and 
nearly banged the door. She was rather fond of cro- 
quettes, especially when they were rather greasy and 
well breaded. 

Only Charlotte knew the state of Kissy’s finances, and 
to Fina and many tradesmen the rigid economy now 
practised was incomprehensible, or at least could only 
be explained by thinking unpleasant things about 
Madame. 

Of course, there are always fifty persons out of every 
hundred who are ready to think unpleasant things about 
the other fifty, and which the other fifty usually heartily 
reciprocate. 

Kissy, however, was not one of the other fifty, and 
she had no idea that the tittle-tattle of the neighbour- 
hood called her skinflint, accused her scornfully of “ cut- 
ting one centime in two,” or that, the Degriefs ’ gossip 
having been repeated with embellishments to ears less 


FROM THE BLUE 297 

discreet than those of Charlotte, it alluded to her, with 
outraged virtue and contempt, as “ that kept woman 
who poses as one who is respectable.” 

Had Kissy dispensed her favours to a lover or so, 
dressed in all the wide-skirted, silk-petticoated eccen- 
tricity of the fashion, lived the gay life, and widely 
spent the money that is supposed to pour in so easily 
to “ such as she,” it is more than probable that her 
right to existence would have been recognized with 
amused tolerance. But a “ kept woman ” who buys 
meat but once a week, refuses to look at “ early ” vege- 
tables, eats her bread without butter, drinks torrealine 
instead of coffee at sixteen francs the pound, and does 
her washing in the back garden, thus usurping the 
privileges of honourable wifedom, is an anomaly which 
shocks convention. Vice must be vicious ; it is not 
allowed to ape respectability, and the feeling against 
Kissy grew astoundingly. “ It was not as if,” the 
butcher’s wife told the baker’s mother, “ the English 
monsieur did not give her money when he left her ! 
One knows from best authority — Degrief’s servant — 
that she has thousands and thousands of francs. What 
can she do with it ? I ask you. Bah ! such women 
should not be allowed in respectable quarters. It dis- 
gusts one to think of them.” 

It was as well that Kissy was unaware of these delight- 
ful sentiments. It takes more philosophy than she was 
capable of to be really indifferent to the snarl of public 
opinion. 

A woman is usually quite ready to fit into the niche 
her lover has hollowed in her honour, and Kissy, who 
for three years had been enshrined in Jim’s heart with 
love and infinite tenderness, was hardly capable of 
realizing how matters might look to virtuous and un- 
sympathetic onlookers. 

It is true that, as she phrased it herself, she knew she 


298 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

“ wasn’t really respectable,” but on the other hand she 
did not feel “ really wicked.” She had made Jim happy 
and, so it seemed, had harmed no one in doing so. Thus, 
when shopkeepers ceased to salute to her as she passed 
their doorways, and neighbours looked more and more 
ostentatiously in another direction, she merely put it 
down to the fact that her patronage was now too in- 
significant to be valued, and that her attempt to earn 
her living had really been rather presumptuous in such 
a select thoroughfare. She did not for one moment 
imagine that these good people were drawing their skirts 
aside from her leprous morality. 

II 

At last news of Jim reached Kissy ; a belated message 
which arrived via Switzerland, but brought all the 
comfort of Jim’s familiar scrawl and the certitude that 
his hand had touched the paper and penned the in- 
significant lines that spoke of the weather and expressed 
the well-worn sentiment that surely now the rainy days 
would soon be ended. It was exquisite to read the 
44 darling girl ” with which the missive began, and to 
smile at the signature which ran with touchingly childish 
deception, “ Your loving Jane.” 

Just a few seemingly careless lines on the back of a 
Swiss post card daubed with a florid view of a marvel- 
lously blue lake, but for Kissy they formed the most 
satisfying love-letter that has ever been written. In 
the brief scanning of those lines she climbed from the 
depth of apathetic despair to dizzy heights of elation 
and hope. That the message, inoffensive as it was, 
seemed to have been delayed for over a month by the 
postal censor, was an unimportant factor. In her joy, 
she would not think that in the weeks that had passed 
since the beloved hand had dropped the card into the 


299 


FROM THE BLUE 

mail-bag, there had been time and occasion for a thou- 
sand risks and a thousand deaths. She was as securely 
content in the joy of the moment as if the message had 
left Jim the instant before. The world and life were 
very beautiful, and the future was almost unimaginably 
splendid. 

Then, since joys like sorrows rarely come singly, a 
few days later she again, but indirectly this time, had 
news of Jim. A tattered flower-seller, exhibiting the 
grimy corner of a ragged newspaper under the roses in 
her basket, offered “ the Dailee Mael in lecture for two 
francs till to-morrow morning.” 

Avidly Kissy devoured the flimsy pages of the week- 
old journal, already creased to tearing-point. The 
blurred and blotchy photographs. The, to her, in- 
comprehensible articles on “ the situation ” — military 
and diplomatic. The enchanting advertisements. The 
hints about frocks and how to rechauffer cold mutton — 
if only cold mutton had been obtainable in Brussels. 
The children’s page. The correspondence column. The 
desirable residences that were to let — such alluring des- 
criptions of Queen Anne cottages. The theatre bill. The 
“ books received.” The movements of the Royal Family, 
and, finally, since the doings of Society were really 
of not the slightest consequence to her, the various 
doings of lords and ladies, of graces and hons. and of 
plain misters and misses with elegantly hyphenated 
names. 

“ Oh 1 ” said Kissy’s heart, “ oh, oh, oh! ” and it 
continued to say “ Oh 1 ” at swift, throbbing intervals, 
while Kissy sat silent, a little stooped, staring down at 
the paper, her breast crushed against the edge of the 
iron terrace-table, rather much in the same position as 
when she had thought she recognized Jim’s portrait in 
the “ Tatler,” that horrible winter, years ago, which she 
had almost forgotten. 


300 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

Jim was a lord now. 

There it stared unmistakably, neatly printed forth 
in black on white. The uncle had died, and the two 
young cousins had been killed at the Front. Jim had 
inherited. There was an extra bit about Jim, telling of 
his work “ Somewhere in France.” Quite a long para- 
graph, too, about his wealth and his wonderful posses- 
sions. . . . The words danced sickeningly, and the beat-, 
ing of Kissy’s heart seemed to shake the table. 

Jim was a lord. 

It was really very like a pantomime . . . Cinderella 
married a prince. ... An English lord was greater 
than a fairy-story prince. . . . And what a nice name 
. . . there seemed to be rather a lot of different ones. . . . 
Lord St. Berwyth was evidently the one that did for 
every day. How nice he would look in knickerbockers 
and silk stockings when he went to call on the King. 

. . . Kissy was glad Jim had such lovely legs . . . 
would he wear a garter — like pantomime princes do — a 
cloak lined with ermine, and a plumed hat. . . . She 
hoped Jim was not very unhappy because his uncle and 
cousins had died, though she couldn’t see how he could 
be, really and truly, he hadn’t seen them for years. . . . 
Would there be castles built of grey stone covered with 
ivy . . . surrounded by English lawns and a lake, 
perhaps, with water-lilies and swans . . . and a town 
house with mantelpieces as unattainable as the pantry- 
shelf on which the strawberry jam of childhood is kept ? 

. . . Would he be rich enough to have straw down in 
the street if any one was ill . . . and would he, oh, above 
all, would he now be able to afford babies ? 

Kissy read the paragraph over again ; and then again, 
and then she read it aloud to Whiskers, who listened 
attentively but remained calm. Kissy also was growing 
calmer ; her heart had ceased to throb in her throat and 
wrists. After all, it was absolutely natural that Jim 


FROM THE BLUE SOI 

should have become a lord. He looked like one ! 
Kissy got up and stared at herself in the glass ; it was a 
pity that she did not look more like a lady. Not that 
she wanted to particularly on her own account, only 
naturally she wished to do Jim honour. 

Then she remembered Jim’s question : “ How would 
you like to be My Lady ? ” — the question that shocked 
her so, because then she had not imagined it possible 
that Jim really wanted to marry her. She recalled 
her answer, her emphatic declaration that she would not 
like it at all, that she would not know “ what to do.” 

“‘I’ll have to learn,” she thought. “I wonder how 
I’ll start ? ” 

That afternoon she went the round of the second-hand 
bookshops in Brussels, from the Galerie St. Jean to the 
very grand Agence Dechenne in the Galerie du Roi, where 
they sometimes have old books. But not in the whole 
of Brussels could she find an English book on Etiquette 
or Manners in High Society. In fact, the only books 
in the English language that could still be found for sale 
were Bibles and the Works of Shakespeare. Of course, 
one could order anything one liked in the Tauchnitz 
Edition, but — The shopkeeper’s smile, and Kiss>’S air 
of disgust were ineffable, as they made and received this 
suggestion. 

“ I’ll do the best I can with Mr. Benson and Elinor 
Glyn,” decided Kissy, as she brought down brightly 
bound Nelson and tattered sixpenny editions from the 
attic, and she learned Dodo speeches by heart in bed at 
night before she went to sleep. “ Though I don’t really 
believe Jim ’ud like me to be as . . . as smart as this, 
or say damn so often,” she pondered, “ and I think the 
Ambrosine girl was rather a little prig. Besides, these 
people don’t tell one how to ‘ collect eyes ’ after dinner, 
or about leaving cards, and all that sort of thing. 
Bother ! ” 


302 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

It was curious that the sudden realization that Jim 
was on active service “ Somewhere in France ” did not 
strike more terror into Kissy ’s soul. 

It was as if the unending weeks that had passed with- 
out news, during which she had tortured herself so need- 
lessly, since, after all, no news had meant good news, 
had armoured her heart to resist, in future, the visionary 
horrors that her morbid examination was capable of 
conceiving. Also Jim, now that he was a lord, was 
surely no longer so vulnerable as a plain “ mister ! ” 

The arrival of the post card, after the weeks of misery, 
had been as efficacious as the wave of a magic wand, 
and Kissy moved in the fairyland of her imagination. 
Her condition was perfectly illogical and, therefore, 
perfectly feminine. 

Ill 

Lying awake at night after the memorizing of Ben- 
sonian speeches, Kissy built wonderful castles in England 
and dreamed glorious dreams of her future with Jim. 

Very quickly she had come to the conclusion that 
really nice people were always kind and simple, and 
that she would certainly be able to find a motherly old 
duchess — fond of gardening probably, if one could really 
believe Mr. Benson, and there was no reason why one 
shouldn’t — who would take her under her wing, and 
teach her the numerous nothings that were so important. 

So Kissy took to slaughtering slugs and weeding the 
garden and planning herbaceous borders — which seemed 
to be an aristocratic pastime — and she would practice 
sitting up very stiffly in a big armchair on the terrace, 
and bowing to the trees of the wood when the wind bowed 
them to her, in order to acquire a graceful bearing pend- 
ing the moment when Jim would take her driving in the 
Park. 

Kissy wondered very much if, when they lived in one 


FROM THE BLUE 803 

of the stately homes of England, the vicar’s wife would 
come and call on her, and if so, what they would con- 
verse about. 

“ I’ll love to give her money for the blanket fund,” 
she thought, “ and promise to take soups and jellies to 
poor, clean old people who live in cottages with diamond- 
paned windows, but I know she’ll talk religion to me, 

; and then she’ll find out that I can’t sing the psalms 
properly, and that I don’t even know the Ananias creed, 
and then I’ll be disgraced ! ” 

Kissy hoped very much that Jim would not expect 
her to have a lady’s maid. “ What ’ud I do with myself 
if I hadn’t got things to mend ! And fancy never being 
able to dress in a hurry, and having somebody tickle you 
putting on your stockings ! ” 

She thought it would be rather nice for Jim to have a 
valet though, and she thought she would like a nice old 
butler, white-haired and rather shaky, who would always 
bid them a grateful welcome when they returned from a 
journey. Kissy could see the picture. The sweeping 
i curve of the gravel drive up from the lodge gates. The 
: ancient pile of the ancestral home. The nail-studded 
oaken doors flung wide, showing the palatial hall ablaze 
with lights and a huge fire roaring in the open hearth, 
while the old, old retainer bowed tremulously from the 
threshold, and waved to the wasp - waistcoat ed footmen 
to do their various duties. 

It was awesomely grand. In bed, at night, it seemed 
as if such things might really come to pass, but in the 
daylight Kissy was positively certain that, even with 
the dear duchess’s advice — she would no doubt call the 
dear duchess Aunt Eleanor — she would not be able to 
live up to it. 

“ I’d like just to see all those splendid places,” she 
thought, “and the house in Piccadilly, and then . . . 
if only we could come back here to the Little House ! 


304 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

If Jim is really so very rich he might, perhaps, buy the 
house next door, and knock down the walls between to 
make room for the babies, and then, if he’s still richer 
than that, we could take the house on the other side and 
build stables and a garage. Then we’d have the wood 
and the forest always at our doors for the children to 
play in, and it would all be too good to be true.” 

She even planned to see to it that Whiskers should 
marry, in order that the babies should have puppies to 
play with. But the Scallywag, who was a born philan- 
derer, barked at the idea, and conveyed to her the fact 
that “ he’d be damned if he would.” 

These were delicious days. Even the dwindling state 
of the exchequer, Fina’s impertinent discontent because 
fried potatoes were never on the menu, and the cold 
stares of tradespeople and neighbours, could not chill 
Kissy. The month was August, the sun was shining, 
Jim had written. He was well and surely happy. 
Soon the war would be finished, and then they would be 
reunited for-ever-and-ever-amen. 

And then, too, Kissy with Jim would see England 
again. She wanted to see England again. 

One day, passing a cinematograph theatre, Kissy had 
been lured within. Not by the thrilling Wild West 
drama or the pathetic Vitagraph comedy, though it was 
played by Earle Williams, who was a little like Jim to 
look at, or the conventional Path6 play of betrayal and 
love. But by the simple item in the advertised pro- 
gramme entitled, Documentaire : le Derby de 1908. 

Guiltily Kissy paid her fifty centimes for the cheapest 
seat — not so very cheap either when you are living on 
your capital — and entered. 

The long, narrow, passage-like room was almost empty, 
and the somnolent programme-seller sleepily told Kissy 
to sit where she liked. A privilege Kissy seized upon 
but which cost her a penny tip. 


FROM THE BLUE 805 

The ensuing joy was worth it. Kissy had never been 
to a race meeting. Her only idea of what such a thing 
could be was gleaned from a reproduction of Frith’s 
picture, but when the flitting scenes danced and flickered 
on the screen, it was the white, powdery smell of a 
summer’s day in England that was brought to her so 
vividly that, leaning forwards in her wooden seat, she 
felt she must rise and walk out into the sunlight, there 
to jostle elbows with the moving crowd that gesticulated 
and grinned and gaped and stared with friendly jocosity 
in her direction. To Kissy the flitting pictures were real. 
The small square screen had depth and breadth and 
immensity. She could hear the stolid tread of the dark 
phalanx of policemen as they tramped across her vision 
and, turning their heads, laughed into her face. The 
cloud of dust that rose from under the wheels of the 
coaches and the hoofs of the horses that galloped so 
grandly down the deep incline of a blindingly sunlit 
road, stung her eyes as it rose billowingly, hiding the 
mounted bobbies on their curveting horses. She could 
hear the smacking flutter of the gaudy Union Jacks that 
blew in the breeze from tent-pole and cocoanut shy. 
The sharp intake of breath that hissed through the 
clenched teeth of the rough-looking men in gaiters who 
were making their ablutions in public. The “ hup ” of 
the acrobat in the wrinkling tights. The guffaw of the 
nigger minstrels. The shrill whine of a mouth-organ 
that ran, like the pipes of Pan, to and fro against the lips 
of a grimacing coster. 

There were picnic parties of shoddily dressed young 
men and flat-breasted, white-bloused girls in beehive 
hats of forgotten fashion, who drank bottled beer and ate 
cherries, flipping the stones in Kissy ’s direction. There 
were grand personages on coach tops, visions of champagne 
bottles, lace frocks, frothy parasols, white top -hats, and 
“ opera ” glasses. There were fantastically attired and 

u 


806 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

jewelled men, who stood on little platforms and yelled 
while they distributed pieces of paper. There were lean 
long-tailed, thin-nostrilled horses gleaming as if they had 
been rubbed with oil, that sidled and stepped and moved 
uneasily behind two long washing lines. With a jerk 
these lines were wafted into the air, vanishing from 
Kissy’s vision. The horses streaked forward along a 
vast open space between wide, straight walls of humanity; 
walls which sagged and broke after the passage of those 
incredibly swift horses, and crumbled into atomic debris 
which surged with inexorable rapidity over the wide 
passage that had been so tidy and so empty but an 
instant earlier. 

“ Ants,” said Kissy to herself, almost without knowing 
that she said it. “ Straggling seaweed, just spreading 
out and making things all untidy. Messy bits of paper 
and lost handkerchiefs, not to mention return-halves, 
supposing one goes there by train. Like a bank-holiday 
cheap excursion.” 

She watched with distended eyes and trembling lips, 
her fingers clenching the threadbare patch of velvet that 
pretended to pad the arms of her wooden stall. It was 
so home-like. The flat angularity of female figures that 
passed in and out of her vision. The bulging, corset- 
compressed fat of the maturer women who dragged 
children in their wake, reminded her of the neighbours in 
Croydon. The shambling loose-kneed gait of certain 
middle-aged men in Sunday afternoon broad-cloth, was 
just like Uncle Tom’s way of walking after a Sunday 
afternoon passed in the recreation grounds, when they 
had to walk home because all the trams were full. And 
the bobbies l The serene, unruffled stateliness of the 
man in blue whose eyes, hidden in the shadow under the 
brim of the helmet, may have been full of authority, but 
whose cheeks were always swelling under the jugular 
strap in an amiable grin. It was England ! it was the 


FROM THE BLUE 307 

English ! The fine nonchalance of the grand ladies on 
the coaches. The assured slow gestures of their tall 
cavaliers. The absence of bustle even in the thickest of 
the crowd. The cool self-possession of the coster who 
drove his barrow between a four-in-hand and a snarling 
taxi-cab, and, above all, the marvellous majesty of that 
fat and rather tubby personage who bowled by in a 
gleaming landau borne by four dazzling discs that 
rotated on the flickering black and white of the screen 
in an opposite direction to that in which the carriage was 
going. Kissy stood up with a convulsive jerk. “ The 
King ! ” she said, aloud, and then, in an awed whisper, 
repeated it as she sank back into her seat. “ My God 
. . . the King ! ” 

Her heart beat, and a few scorching tears ran down 
her cheeks, and it was over. The black-coated figure 
automatically raising the supemacular top-hat, vanished 
behind a hedge of gesticulating arms that brandished 
calico flags and waved caps and handkerchiefs. Mounted 
policemen held back an automobile that was arriving too 
rapidly in the tracks of the royal carriage, and one could 
see the convulsive grip of the chauffeur’s fingers on the 
break lever, and the annoyed frown of the occupants of 
the car. 

Kissy sniffed ungracefully, and dabbed at her eyes with 
the back of her hand, encased in a wash-leather glove ; 
she could not spare time to hunt for a handkerchief. 

She did not marvel at her emotion. She did not try 
to analyse her sudden heart throbs, incomprehensible 
as they were. She did not wonder why, in the name of 
common sense, she should bow down in rapt devotion to 
a stranger she had never seen before so vividly, whom 
she had never seen in flesh and blood. 

All the atavistic instincts of her race sent that warm 
rush of devotion and loving loyalty coursing through her 
veins in madly beating throbs* 


308 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

She was English and he was her King. 

And as she walked out of the dim theatre into the 
bright orange glare of the August afternoon, her knees 
still trembling, and the quivering of goose-flesh still cold 
on her spine, she thought wistfully, as a child thinks, of 
an almost unattainable and infinitely remote joy : 

“ I’d like to see England again, how I’d like to see 
England again I ” 

IV 

Charlotte was right. Jim’s workmen proved to be of 
une sale race — an odious race. But that, of course, is 
what capitalism has made of the working mass. If the 
bourgeois finds the workman odious, the workman has 
every right to find the bourgeois more odious. The matter 
is what the French call a “ vicious circle.” 

But to Kissy, who had not read Kropotkine, who knew 
nothing of social economy, and who thought that poverty 
was as natural and indisputable a state of affairs as 
wealth, the ingratitude of the men to whom she had given 
her all was fabulous and disconcerting. 

She had done all she could. If the war lasted much 
longer how was she to live herself, unless the miracle 
happened ? 

“ . . . Then we must starve . . . or go work for 
Them” grumbled the spokesman of the deputation that 
crowded the dining-room of the Little House. 

“ What can I do ? ” asked Kissy. It was vexatious 
that her voice trembled. Jim’s wife, she felt, should be 
more composed. More obviously dignified. 

The deputation shuffled its feet and suggested nothing, 
neither did it move towards the door. 

“ I have nothing more,” said Kissy. “ I gave you all 
I had. It is not my fault that M. Degrief departed thus. 
Monsieur could not imagine that such a thing would come 
to pass itself when he gave him power. I will try and 


FROM THE BLUE 309 

write to Monsieur. I have done that which I could. 
So soon as the answer arrives I will send to you. I 
promise that you shall first be cared for.” 

The deputation sniffed sceptically, and at last shuffled 
to the door. As the spokesman passed the sideboard 
he halted, and stared at a silver salver. . . . “ That is 
money,” he said. 

“ It is not mine,” answered Kissy. “ It belongs to the 
house.” 

“ There may be other things,” suggested the man. 

“ That is true,” said Kissy. “ I will think. But go 
you now, I pray you, go at once ! ” 

“ It is good, it is good,” grumbled the man, a little 
abashed, as he hurried after the others, who were filing 
past Charlotte in the narrow hall. “ I go. Without ill- 
will, is it not, Madame ? I salute you well.” He bowed 
clumsily as he sidled out. 

Kissy resentfully watched his exit. She had felt the 
latent hostility of this unwilling departure. Why would 
these people not believe her ? Why look so incredulous ? 
Why those appraising glances over her frock, two years 
old, but of thick, soft crepe-de-chine, at her pearl and 
diamond brooch — Jim’s first present — at the books, the 
carpet . . . and the silver ? 

She was more than willing to admit that it was not 
fair that she should have these things while they had 
nothing. But even if she converted that which was hers 
into money — and would Jim wish her to do so ? — to 
what would it amount ? — a few hundred francs, and then 
... It was hopeless. . . . Also starvation ; for starva- 
tion, the same fate, was staring her in the face . . . 
perhaps this was Nemesis descending upon her for her 
wickedness ... It was fitting that she should starve 
rather than the respectable wives and respectable 
children of respectable working-men. . . . But Jim had 
written ; he would expect to find her waiting for him 


310 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

in the Little House. . . . Charlotte, Fina also, were 
dependent upon her — or so Kissy thought. ... It was 
all very perplexing . . . everything had been so beautiful 
since Jim’s message, and now things were going wrong 
again. . . . Besides, was the silver Jim bought hers to 
sell. ... 

Unable to come to a decision alone, she called Char- 
lotte. At all events Kissy would have been obliged to 
confide in the servant, for she had no idea of the where- 
abouts of the pawnshops of Brussels, nor how to set about 
the negotiations that were to transmute her belongings 
into paper of the realm. 

Charlotte stared with mouth agape, rolled her eyes 
heavenwards, brought them to earth again, gasped, 
flapped wildly with her arms, struggled with an ardent 
desire to scream, and finally dropped into the nearest 
chair because, it seemed, her legs “knew .not how to 
carry her.” 

It “ turned her blood,” and “ her heart made but one 
jump ” to hear Madame say such things ! “ But it was 

of the folly the most furious I Give the chemise off 
one’s back to those ungrateful ones ! She, Charlotte, 
would first see to lock Madame up in her room before 
she would allow such a happening ! Jtsus-Maria ! 
What would Monsieur say ? Madame had already done 
more than she ought. Let the greedy ones aller d la 
toupe ; the free communal kitchens where they would 
receive bread, soup, and as much help as was good for 
them.” 

“ But,” objected Kissy timidly, “ then they will be 
chomeurs , and it is those out-of-work men that the 
Germans send to Germany when they need work done 
there . . . they starve and maltreat them and . . .” 

“ But that is a misfortune Madame cannot help,” 
shouted the excessively excited and indignant Charlotte. 
“ Madame has, all the same, not the pretension to put 


FROM THE BLUE 811 

herself — and us ” (this was added as an afterthought, 
and those two little words clinched the argument) “ on 
straw for the sake of strangers who, as Madame sees, 
are not grateful, and will always come back to ask more 
and more each time. Non f non ! Let me do ! 1 will 
speak to them next time. Madame shall not show her- 
self.” Then, with superb assurance : “ I will occupy 
myself of everything ; let Madame make herself no 
bile ! ” And Kissy unheroically, and feeling much 
ashamed, gratefully let the matter rest “ for the time 
being at all events.” 

***** 

Three days later the man who had cast covetous eyes 
on the silver returned. Charlotte received him on the 
door-step, blocking the narrow entrance with her stout 
figure, arms akimbo, and shrewish of lip. 

“ Well, what want you ? ” she demanded. 

“ To speak with Madame.” 

“ Madame is occupied and wishes that one should give 
all messages to me.” 

There was a silence. Kissy, who had taken refuge on 
the first landing, peered through the banisters. The 
man made a movement to enter, but Charlotte resolutely 
pushed the door in his face. The rest of the parley was 
conducted through a narrow aperture. 

The man made up his mind. 

“ She said she would see to give us more money.” 

“ Speak respectfully, my friend, or I shut the door on 
thy ugly face.” 

The man mumbled something, turned his head, and 
spat lingeringly of the tobacco he was chewing. Then 
boldly and loudly he spoke : 

“ Demand of Madame that she keep the promise she 
made to us.” 

“ Madame made no promise.” 


312 


THE BROKEN LAUGH , 

“ But yes, Madame promised to search for money,” 
asserted the man. 

“ Madame has no money,” said Charlotte decisively. 

“ No money ! No money ! ” the masculine voice 
snarled angrily. “ I tell you, me, that such women as 
that always have money, and ...” There was a 
sudden movement, and the scrape of steel on stone as a 
hobnailed boot was swiftly withdrawn. The door 
slammed, and with a quick turn of the wrist the servant 
opened the ground glass panel and spoke through the 
iron bars to the man on the pavement. 

“ Good for nothing that thou art,” she screamed 
angrily. “ Ingrate, go thou at once, or I will have the 
police pursue thee.” 

An indistinct murmur came from without, but the 
panel was swung back into place and the bolt pushed 
home. Without an upward glance to where she was re- 
gretfully certain that Kissy was hiding, Charlotte turned, 
and clattered down the wooden stairs to her kitchen. 

“ Such women as that” the man had said. Kissy felt 
that she was standing naked at the pillory of shame. 
What did he mean ? Was it just a coincidence ? Just 
an angry, disappointed man’s way of speaking, or did 
people really know that she was not . . . not what she 
had pretended to be ? 

Anger struggled with pain. She felt every woman’s 
instinctive desire to rush to her mate for protection. 
She thought with vindictive pride how, were he only 
here, Jim’s fist would have smashed into the man’s inso- 
lent sneer. But Jim was not here ; she had no one to 
fight her battles; though . . . yes, Charlotte had ap- 
peared to take her part ! Then Charlotte knew . . . 
and she had said nothing ? It was hardly possible. 
Who could have told ? Degrief, of course ... oh, the 
beast, the hateful beast ! He had “ said things ” to her, 
and yet he had let her slave for the children and watch 


FROM THE BLUE 313 

by his wife’s death-bed ! No, it wasn’t possible . . . 
and yet ... if it was ... 

Then, a wave of morbid humility engulfing her, she 
told herself that she had no right to feel resentful. 

* * * * * 

Kissy was not long left in the doubt that was raised 
in her mind by the workman’s slighting phrase. Next 
morning she learned, brutally and unmistakably, the 
light in which she was viewed by the righteous. 

Before leaving the Little House Jim had paid a year’s 
rent in advance. When the month of May came round 
the landlord, who collected his own rents, was away in 
the country, and, since he gave no sign of life, Kissy 
quite lost sight of the fact that sooner or later she 
would be called upon to produce nearly three thousand 
francs. 

In June, he strolled round one morning to “ remind 
Monsieur that, when convenient, he would be glad of a 
cheque.” Charlotte, who opened the door, asked 
Monsieur the proprietor to have the extreme obligency 
to call round again, as Monsieur was away and Madame 
was out. 

Charlotte’s idea was to settle the matter herself with- 
out speaking of it to Kissy. She would have done so at 
once, only her savings were still at the bank. 

The landlord, who was an easygoing old chap, smiled, 
waved his hands and nodded his head. “ There was no 
hurry, no hurry at all. It was at the convenience of 
Madame Crighton ! ” And six weeks passed before he 
sauntered round once more, combining business with a 
gentle constitutional. This time it was Fina who opened 
the door ; Fina, who knew nothing of her mother’s re- 
solution or of the state of Kissy’s finances. 

“ Well, well, say that I called,” said the old man 
meekly, in answer to Fina’s supercilious “ Madame is 


314 


THE BROKEN LAUGH 

out ” — “ and it would greatly oblige me if Madame could 
let me have the money by the end of the month.” 

Fina, with careful disdain, promised to give the mes- 
sage, and Fina . . . forgot. 

The days passed, dropping one by one into history. 
Meanwhile, in his own little red-brick, stoutly built 
(and therefore not for hire) cottage, Monsieur le pro- 
priHaire began to wonder. 

Unfortunately Monsieur the proprietor had a wife ; 
a virtuous, righteous, unlovely -to-look-at, and “ well- 
thinking ” wife, and when he began to mildly wonder 
aloud to this lady, things came rapidly to a climax. 

“ Prepare me the receipt,” was the worthy woman’s 
sole comment, as she departed in quest of her bonnet. 

14 But, bobonne ,” the spirit mildly protested, while the 
weak flesh drove Monsieur the proprietor towards the 
blotter and the inkstand, 44 mais bobonne , there is no 
hurry, it is very certain they are honest people.” 

The lady spoke with authority : 44 One has not the 
right, in life, when one is in our position, to lead others 
into the sins of procrastination and debt.” 

If only Madame la propriHaire had been allowed by 
chance to go straight to the Little House, all might yet 
have been fairly well. But, as she walked primly up 
the Avenue Lepetit, she met one of Kissy’s neighbours 
— an impoverished lady whose daughters surreptitiously 
did fine needlework and embroidery for a famous lingerie 
house in the rue Royale. This genteel soul had been the 
first to complain of Kissy’s attempt to turn her front 
window into a millinery shop, and had urged the writing 
of the letter concerning item B of paragraph 3, which 
had much distressed kind-hearted Monsieur le pro- 
priHaire , although, as his wife pointed out to him, it was 
his duty to respect public opinion. 

They met and clasped hands, as do two elderly ladies 
with provincial minds who go to the same church and 


FROM THE BLUE 815 

have the same father-confessor. The conversation 
touched on many questions, and varied from cabbages 
to kings, and then, as sauntering, they approached 
Kissy’s doorstep and Madame the proprietress paused 
with her hand hovering over the bright brass bell-button, 
the lady of the sewing daughters was reminded to draw 
down her lips a little more acutely, and tell her com- 
panion all the latest facts she had heard about “ that 
English person without morals who lives in the Little 
House.” 

It lost nothing in the telling. 

On the strength of these astounding revelations, 
Madame la proprUtaire behaved as only an infallibly 
righteous person would dare to behave. 

When Fina let her into the house, the dining-room 
door happened to be open, and, receipt in hand, virtuous 
indignation shining in her eyes, she marched straight 
through the rooms to where Kissy was sitting sewing 
on the terrace. She remained grimly silent, while the 
aghast Kissy digested the suggestion contained in the 
paper that had been thrust at her. 

“ I am afraid that I must ask you to have the great 
kindness to wait a little longer,” she said at last, nerv- 
ously, looking into the woman’s hard face. The ap- 
pealing charm of Kissy’s voice would have won a little 
kindness from any one just a shade less righteous ; but 
to Madame la proprtttaire it was merely an exhibition 
of a sinful woman’s wiles. 

“ We have waited already since May,” was the un- 
compromising reply. 

“ Do you see, it is thus,” began Kissy. “ My husb 
...” A sudden steel -hard glint in the eyes that stared 
so unmercifully into hers made Kissy stammer and 
blush — “ . . . er . . . M. . . . M. . . . Mr. Crighton 
has gone to England to join the army and . . .” But 
it was useless postponement, and Kissy shrank back, 


316 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

dreading that which she saw was coming and which 
came, relentlessly. 

“ Mistaire Crighton ? . . . Your husband . . . hah ! 

. . .” The scornful sound of the exclamation is irre- 
producible. 

Then in a torrent Kissy heard frightful things. The 
whipping at the cart-tail could have been borne better 
than this woman’s scourging tongue. It clacked on and 
on, flicking into the raw with every sentence. The 
virtuous shrew’s opinion of the erring woman who is 
young and charming, and has dared to ape respectability 
and live her life happily, was developed with due malig- 
nancy. Defenceless and terrified, Kissy stood staring 
stonily, incapable of uttering a word in self-defence. 
Besides, what could she say ? The woman sounded so 
horribly sure of her views. Her cruel voice carried con- 
viction — it also carried its shrill tones to Charlotte in the 
kitchen below, and what Kissy dreaded proved to be her 
salvation. Charlotte listened for one short instant, 
astounded and furious. Then in a bustling mother-hen 
rush, without waiting to wipe the floury hands and arms 
that had been kneading the grey bread paste, she dived 
into the cupboard, scattering a pile of dishcloths, and 
snatching up her purse, a bulging canvas sack with a 
great steel clasp. 

The iron garden-stairs clanked and groaned as she 
charged up them. 

“ How much ? ” she cried, as she pulled the receipt 
from Kissy’s trembling hands between which it still 
fluttered. “ Here . . .” she fumbled in her purse, 
drawing out two large bills and several small ones — 
“ here, you, take this. Take, and go ; get at once, that 
I say ! What manners are these ? Wait, then, till 
Monsieur returns and he will teach you to speak so. . . .” 
She enveloped the woman in a cloud of grey dust as she 
thrust the paste-flecked notes into her hands. “ Nay, 


FROM THE BLUE 817 

not one word more ; I, who am witness and who will 
remember, I tell you, me, that you will repent of this. 
What have you to say so long as your money is given ? 
. . .” Then with scornful familiarity : “ Couldst thou 
not wait in the passage ? Learn then thy place and keep 
it . . . Go.” While she spoke, she hustled and crushed 
forwards, forcing Madame la proprietaire backwards 
through the room and finally out of the house. 

The door slammed, and on either side of it the women 
paused — Charlotte to regain her breath, Madame la 
propritiaire to count the money that was crumpled in her 
cotton glove. The verification that the amount was 
quite correct did much to soothe her outraged dignity, 
but although she knew that she had every moral right 
on her side, and that no really good woman would wear 
fine silk stockings to sit at home alone and sew, she 
marched home in a decidedly uncomfortable frame of 
mind. Charlotte’s outburst had given her something 
to ponder over . . . possibly . . . after all . . . the 
neighbour may have made a mistake. 

* * * * * 

Upstairs in the bedroom, which she had unceremoni- 
ously invaded without knocking, Charlotte stood over 
Kissy, who was huddled on the foot of the bed. Her face 
was buried in her hands, and she was trembling violently. 

She was unaware of the servant’s presence, and Char- 
lotte could hear her gasping over and over again a 
shuddering, “ Oh . . . ooh . . . ooh ! ” 

It was a heartrending sound, and Charlotte blinked as 
she looked down on the bowed figure. The white neck 
from which the dark hair waved upwards, was infinitely 
pathetic. Kissy always had that affecting nape. 

“ The poor little one,” said the good soul to herself. 
“ What then could I say to her ? It is not of my busi- 
ness ; she will not thank me to poke my nose into her 


818 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

sadness. Let us leave her to cry all her fullness. All 
will go well when the tears have washed the hurt . . . 
pauvre petite, how one must pay always for one’s errors ! ” 
and as she tiptoed out of the room her soliloquy finished 
with the inevitable conclusion : “ C’est pourtant vrai . . . 
les hommes . . . c'cst tons des cochons ! ” 


V 

In August Jim was in London on leave. 

There was much to be done in the short time of which 
he disposed ; business connected with his inheritance — 
i hat quite unexpected piece of fortune which was to him 
far from an unmixed joy. 

Not for an instant did he dream of allowing it to come 
between Kissy and himself, but it was not treasonable 
to think that life would have remained an infinitely less 
complicated affair could it have been continued in the 
Little House. 

He looked back upon the life he had spent in Brussels 
with the keenest satisfaction and an ardent sense of 
gratitude. He longed to return to the work that ab- 
sorbed him and entirely satisfied his desire to be a useful 
unit of the working world. Wistfully he dwelt on the 
memory of the peaceful happiness of his leisure moments 
and holidays spent with the woman-mate whose love 
seemed to blossom more richly with each passing season 
and who had become so naturally, so freely, his. 

Life in England would be ... for a long, long while 
he pondered before coming to the conclusion that had 
tempted him from the first . . . would be impossible. 
But then the conventional phrase of an old match-making 
friend rang in his ears : 

“ Your first duty now, my dear boy, will be to — 
Yes, of course, marriage ... the sweet blush rose, the 
bread-and-butter miss . . . and children . . . not 


FROM THE BLUE 819 

babies, titled children bom with a drawl to follow the 
beaten paths with lackadaisical indifference. . . . Damn 
it all, he was going to marry Kissy . . . and she should 
choose whether she wished to live in England or — 
abroad. What did it matter where, so long as they were 
together . . . people could say what they liked. . . . 
The boys would be sent to Eton in due time. They , 
if they chose, and they probably would choose, could 
pick up the traditions that their father had flouted. 
Jim looked ahead, far ahead, into the still grey mist of 
the future. He saw himself an old man, not hideously 
old as other people become, but very much as he was 
now, only with white hair and no doubt a few more 
wrinkles. He and Kissy were living in a little villa built 
in a Latin country on a sunny slope. He could smell 
the scent of the syringa and hear the rustling of the 
trees in the evening breeze, that made Kissy draw a 
fleecy white shawl closer round her shoulders. Kissy, 
too, had grown old, but yet was still slim and smooth of 
cheek. There were just two delightful white strands 
that ran back from the temples. He could feel under 
his caressing fingers the cool, soft flesh of her forearm, 
firm and so exquisite to touch. 

It would be a wonderful end passed out there alone 
together — just “ we two walking out into the sunset.” 
And in England the children grown-up, married pro- 
bably, and with babies of their own to imprison their 
thoughts in the future, would live decorously in polite 
society. . . . Damn polite society ! ... If only those 
places in the country and up in Scotland were not so 
wondrously beautiful. . . . After all, he would take 
Kissy to see them ; she was to decide. . . . First, they 
would marry — that was the main thing ; then they would 
decide. 

Glad to have settled the matter — man-like, he really 
thought he had — and possibly with the faintest glow of 


320 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

self-satisfaction, Jim invaded a green-and-white tiled 
bathroom, flooded away his cares in cold shower, and 
emerged, half an hour later, to dine leisurely and after- 
wards saunter round to the nearest place of amusement 
for war-worn warriors. 

The place proved to be the Palace, the allurement — 
Regina Delices ; and Jim enjoyed, with healthy pleasure, 
the little Frenchwoman’s piquant personality. There 
were two frocks and a certain pair of jewelled shoes that 
Jim mentally appropriated for Kissy ; a few inches added 
top and bottom, of course, and certainly a smaller-sized 
shoe. Then, when the little lady of the footlights bowed 
and bowed again in response to reiterated calls, Jim, 
ungratefully forgetting to applaud, leaned back in his 
stall, and with half-closed eyes watched cloud -pictures 
of Kissy form in the haze of his cigar-smoke. 

It was entirely satisfying and restful to think of her 
waiting for him patiently in the tranquil security of the 
Little House. Jim thought of Whiskers, too. “ Wonder 
how the tyke is,” was the way he expressed himself — 
“ lucky, lucky little devil ” — but the envious mood that 
the thought of Whiskers had aroused was shattered by 
some one who thumped him on the back, demanding 
to know, potferdom, what he was doing there. Good- 
humouredly grinning, he turned to greet a Dutchman, 
a business friend with whom he had had pleasant dealings. 

“ By the way,” said the friend, after many things be- 
sides whiskies and sodas had been discussed, “ I met 
your ex-partner, Degrief, and his smala at Scheveningen 
a week or so ago ” 

“ My Gz-partner, cher ami , surely not ; what do you 
mean ? ” 

The friend told him the Degrief version. A tale of ill- 
health and despair, resulting from the death of an 
“ adored wife.” Of the necessity of change of air for 
the children. Of the impossibility to continue to work 


FROM THE BLUE 321 

under German rule — an embarrassed rigmarole that had 
only served to convince the unsympathetic Hollander 
that Degrief, proving, as he had so often done before 
in his unfortunate career, to be utterly incompetent, 
Jim Crighton had been obliged to get rid of him. Degrief 
had not mentioned his partner, and the Dutchman had 
been unaware that Jim had managed to get to England. 
Jim was dumbfounded. 

Till late into the night the two men discussed and 
surmised and made plans. 

Jim was frantic with anger at the idea of Kissy left 
alone without even Degrief’s slipshod friendship, and 
deprived of the income from the yard. What a mercy 
it was, however, that she had those five thousand francs 
to fall back upon in case of need. But, poor little girl, 
how she must be worrying to know what will become of 
her when the last hundred-franc note is changed . . . 
he would send money at once . . . but why, in the name 
of everything, had the child not written ? . . . yes, he 
was forgetting, she would want to explain ... it was 
not in Kissy to simply say “ send.” Also, possibly 
she may have been afraid to change the formula he had 
impressed upon her — “ just talk of the weather and your 
health, my dearest dear. . . How she had clung to 
him in that dark prison cell when he had said that ! . . . 
Yes, it would have been difficult for her to explain . . . 
it would not be easy either, to smuggle money into 
Belgium . . . though Van Cuyper would see to that. . . . 

“ Won’t you, old chap ? ...” and, perhaps, a letter ; 
a real letter in which Jim would tell Kissy delicious, 
almost unwriteable things . . . 

“ Now, my dear fellow, let’s plan it out. By Jove, 
you know, it’s awfully good of you, the risk, you know, 
and all that. I can’t say how grateful I am, really I 
can’t. ...” 

But the Dutchman, blushing and depreciative, pooh- 


322 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

poohed any obligation, and vowed he was delighted to 

be of service. 

Therefore, when Jim returned to . . . “ Somewhere 

in France,” in the course of the next days, he took with 
him the knowledge that within a very little while Kissy 
would receive the visit of Van Cuyper — he was sure he 
would manage to get a passport — and that the Dutch- 
man would do for Kissy all that could be done. Jim 
liked to think of the letter he had written her — a letter 
to which Van Cuyper had promised to bring an answer. 
It was jolly decent of him, since travelling nowadays was 
neither the easiest, safest, nor swiftest of pastimes. 

* * * * * 

It was with a clear conscience, therefore, that Jim, 
strongly helmeted and leathem-coated, climbed into 
the observer’s seat of his machine, and cheerily whistled 
“ Tipperary ” while the pilot was “ fiddling around like 
a measly turncock.” 

They did not expect to be up long, only a short circle 
of observation over the fighting-line. But it was their 
first trip on this particular morning and, besides, as 
every one knows, if it’s easy to tell when and where you 
go up, it’s not so easy to be sure where — or how — you’ll 
come down. So the pilot fiddled away for a few minutes 
longer and frowned absent-mindedly, and Jim, though 
he whistled with excruciating shrillness and chaffed 
his comrade for an old woman between times, also 
verified with careful precision, the mechanism of the 
machine-gun and the store of munition that was in his 
care. 

Well, so-long,” said the pilot, and lifted his hand. 

“ ... To the sweetest girl I know,” shrilled Jim — 
and they were no more, already, than a rising, receding 
speck in the blue sky above the grey smoke haze — high, 
and high and higher, before they headed to the point 


FROM THE BLUE 328 

where they would swoop down and endeavour to accom- 
plish that which they had been sent to do. 

VI 

A tall, well-built girl in the outdoor dress of a hospital 
nurse walked down the Champs Elyeees towards the 
excessively decorative hotel which had been converted 
into an ambulance and to which she belonged. 

She was returning from her compulsory walk, which 
had taken her to the Bois, where she had loitered a little, 
amused at the crowd that had gathered under the already 
yellowing trees of the Avenue — a crowd composed of 
victoriously Parisian Parisiennes, venerable greybeards, 
and callow youths. 

It was an amusing sight. Those pretty women in those 
charming frocks. Those enchanting hats tied with such 
prodigiously embroidered veils — Sister Alice reflectively 
touched the tip of her slightly sunburnt, deliciously 
Greek little nose, and wondered how long it was since 
she had worn a veil. Those absurdly fragile shoes and 
dainty stockings and quaint oddities of dress. Ridicu- 
lous, all of them, but delightful ! And those podgy 
sunshades and en cas were rather jolly with their squat 
fat bodies and short handles slung from the wrist by a 
leathern thong. Alice found herself thinking that the 
short, very wide skirts that fashion decreed were vastly 
becoming to possessors of pretty ankles. She hoped that 
when she had time really to think about such things 
again they would still be wearing them. She had long 
since got over the period when the newly diplomaed 
hospital nurse thinks that her uniform is infinitely more 
attractive than the latest Callot creation. 

Alice had got over many things : the foolish, flapperish, 
flirtatious period that had started and ended her short 
engagement to Jim. The profound conviction, bom of 


324 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

that episode, that she was a very wonderful young 
person. The certitude that her opinion on every matter 
under the sun and moon was of paramount importance 
to the world, and a hundred other youthful errors that 
one lives through, as one generally lives through measles, 
mumps, and the whooping-cough. 

She was still, of course, delightfully young, but if she 
walked with an enchantingly tilted chin and was still 
self-confident, she was no longer aggressively so. Her 
virginal gawkiness had been replaced by a new maidenly 
grace of movement, learned in tiptoeing round beds of 
suffering and bending in heart -wrung pity over burning 
pillows. In the amused gaze she had bent on the pretty 
ladies of the Bois there was the tender gravity that always 
lurked in her eyes now — eyes that had seen the infinite suf- 
fering that is born of infinite cruelty, and brave men die 
hideously from the wounds brave men had hideously made. 

She had seen the torn bodies of little babies, and 
quivered before the pitiable paleness of their mangled 
flesh, while the murderers had sailed away unscathed 
and unremorseful in their sinister airships. She had 
seen the frightful agony of the hale man who learns, his 
head still enswathed in its cocoon of bandages, that he 
will never see his sweetheart’s face again. She had 
watched the pallid Cockney cough out his life in thick 
gurgles even while he gasps, “ It’s me for a country life 
now, nurse ; never go back t’ the city again.” She had 
heard the heart-breaking cry of the widowed mother who 
arrives at her boy’s bedside too late. Of the sick and 
lonely soldier who sees the fatal screen dragged round 
his comrade’s bed. The pitiful, half-fearful appeals of 
the young wife to the blank-eyed warrior whose mind 
had proven unequal to the splendid glory of his body. 
Suffering had sent ageing thought to mature' her girlish 
emptiness, and made a woman of her even while her soul 
was yet as ignorant as a child’s. 


FROM THE BLUE 825 

Since the affair with Jim, many men had made love to 
her. Proposals of marriage awaited her at two bedsides 
in the ambulance even then, but she would listen to none 
of them — the memory of what she had thrown away, 
poetized with time, had become an obsession. How 
foolish she had been to listen to her parents ! Alice did 
not know that they, on their part, having heard of Jim’s 
inheritance, bitterly regretted it themselves. Thinking 
of him still as Jim Crighton, she had built a little niche 
for him in her heart, and enshrined him there even as she 
vowed that she would never, never, never love again. 

She was, one sees, delightfully young. 

At the hospital she changed quickly, since she was just 
the littlest fraction of a minute late. Bright-eyed from 
her walk, the wave of her hair perhaps a little more 
pronounced than usual under her demure cap, she re- 
ported herself on duty. 

Some new cases had arrived. One was in Alice’s ward, 
in the favourite, coveted comer bed near the window, 
which had been vacant for the last twenty-four hours. 

“ He’s sleeping now ; we gave him a hypodermic ; 
he was all done up with the journey,” said the nurse who 
was going off duty as, on the threshold of the ward — 
it had been the billiards -room of a “ grand suite ” in the 
days of the hotel’s splendour — she paused to give a few 
gossipy fragments of information to her fellow-worker. 
“ Seems a nice boy, not so much of a boy either, thirty- 
four or five, p’raps. A gentleman. One of the flying 
men. He’s to get the Medaille Militaire for the smash 
that brings him here. . . . What ? . . . Oh, you’ll see 
the chart ; he’s all right, bit knocked about, of course. 
Had rather a shock — what can you expect with three 
ribs and a leg in plaster, besides having been nicely 
peppered. Very weak, of course ; but the old man says 
it’s merely a question of nursing now. He’s in luck to 
get you, my dear, it’s just your sort of case. . . . Well, 


326 


THE BROKEN LAUGH 

ta-ta. . . . Oh, number eight is bothering for a cigarette 
already. He’s out of the wood safe enough. Now I’m 
really going . . . ’bye ! ” 

Alice went into the ward to be greeted with various 
degrees of fretfulness and pleasure by her differently 
constituted patients. She went from one bed to another, 
scolding and cheering, chaffing hoydenishly or demurely 
dignified, self-possessed and swift without self-assertion 
or bustle. 

At the bedside of the new-comer she reached for the 
card that dangled in its loose frame at the end of the bed 
and would reveal to her, with blunt directness, his name 
and his misfortune ; but her arm fell nerveless to her 
side and her heart throbbed with unprofessional rapidity 
as her eyes rested on his face. 

She had often thought that this might happen, but 
now that it had happened it seemed incredible. 

How thin and brown and splendid he looked ! How 
changed, how finely changed ! In the old days he had 
been so much sleeker ; almost plump compared to this. 
. . . She liked the new way his hair was brushed, and the 
grey in it did not make him look a bit older. What a 
boyish pout the sunken cheeks gave to the mouth under 
the short moustache, and how wonderfully lean his hands 
were ! 

Nursing would save him, the old man had said. . . . 
How glad was Alice that she had become a nurse . . . 
for if nursing would save him, then he was as good as 
cured this very minute. 

But first there was one thing she had to do, and al- 
though all her training shrieked out with indignation at 
such an action, she softly laid her hand over the thin 
fingers and gently caressed them. Even as she did so 
she bitterly blamed herself, but the impulse had been 
irresistible . . . and anyway, it surely would not wake 
him. 


FROM THE BLUE 327 

Not quite perhaps, but the heavy eyelids stirred and 
blinked. In the fleeting flash of light that passed before 
his eyes, Jim glimpsed a face that he rather thought he 
knew. He was not conscious that this familiar face 
belonged to Alice. In his blurred cosmos names no 
longer existed. It was just a nice face. A face that 
probably went with soft hands that would deal gently 
with his aching body. Before the darkness closed over 
him again he tried desperately to tell the owner of this 
face that he was very weary. That horrible noises had 
been singing in his head for so very long. That he would 
be so grateful if only some one would mount guard over 
him and keep those noises away. There was a fly that 
had been very bothering, a big blue fellow with iridescent 
wings and a bass voice. And would this some one please 
not let strange people come and stare at him in public 
places (that was one of many things which had proved 
very annoying). Somebody had dropped the stale butt 
of a cigar near by and it stank. Also there was water 
dripping somewhere, and the sound of the drips wove 
themselves into a coloured pattern that hurt one’s eyes. 
Would some one please put a wet cloth on his forehead, 
not eau-de-cologne, because that was rather sickly, but 
vinegar, and then the midges wouldn’t bite. And who 
was whistling out of time in that infernal manner ? 
. . . but the darkness was closing in, and the noises 
sounding fainter and fainter ... he was very, very 
grateful to the owner of that familiar face ; well, he was 
doing his best to say so, and his throat and tongue were 
dry and parched with so much talking. It had been a 
long, long speech, and he was very tired . . . but Alice, 
who was leaning above the bed and breathlessly listening, 
her ear almost at his lips, knew that. 

“ H’llo, old girl ! ” was what Jim really said. 


328 


THE BROKEN LAUGH 


VII 

After the visit of Madame la proprietaire, Kissy went 
through a bad time. To her many horrible sins she had 
added the unpardonable one of being found out. Brussels 
is, morally, one of the greatest “ little village ” towns 
of Europe, and as venomously intolerant as a married 
lady with a past. If Kissy had been blind to the feelings 
she had aroused in her quiet neighbourhood, she was now, 
thanks to the revelations of the virtuous soul who had 
enlightened her, painfully and keenly aware of the regard 
in which all decent people must hold her. 

It was agony to walk down the street when she took 
Whiskers for his daily walk. She would have infinitely 
preferred never to stir from the quiet shelter of the 
terrace, but that would not have been fair to the dog. 
She walked fast, as fast as possible without running, 
with downcast eyes and burning cheeks ; and while she 
walked she was certain that behind each primly curtained 
window scornful eyes were watching, fingers pointing — 
she could feel the dull yellow nails skewering into her 
flesh between the shoulder-blades — and that hard voices 
were saying : “ There ! That's her ! ” 

Kissy ’s misery was very great ; but no doubt Madame 
la proprietaire , the lady of the sewing daughters, and the 
butcher’s wife would have liked it to be even greater had 
they known that, even now, Kissy hardly realized the 
error of her ways. 

Kissy was unhappy because she knew that people 
thought her so much more wicked than she really was. 
She actually dared to think that there could be degrees 
in wickedness ! What a mercy that no one knew of this 
pretentious piece of impertinence. And she writhed 
mainly because there was no way of telling them that, 
really, she was not so very hideously bad after all. 


FROM THE BLUE 329 

Not hideously bad, a girl who had lived with a man and 
had dared to ape the respectability of a married woman ! 
Oh, fie ! supposing the mother of the sewing spinsters 
had heard her ! What a blessing it was that Charlotte 
had interrupted before Kissy had been able to place a 
word in self-defence ! 

Kissy was infinitely grateful to Charlotte for her inter- 
vention ; but with the gratitude mingled the shame of 
knowing that Charlotte . . . knew. (It is obvious that 
Kissy’s sense of morality was hopelessly warped.) 
“ Knew ” without knowing. Charlotte, too, probably 
“ thought the worst,” but, of course, it did not shock her 
so much because she was “ only a servant.” 

“ What a beastly thing to say ! ” was Kissy’s im- 
mediate thought. “ So was Aunt Liz a servant, and so 
was I in the rue Macabre. . . . Oh, Aunt Liz ! ” and 
Kissy wept a little, which was perfectly natural and 
quite to be expected. She was rather watery in those 
days. 

Then she indulged in healing dreams of future grandeur. 
She would marry Jim, and they would come to Brussels 
and glide up to Monsieur le propriitaire’s door in a silver- 
and-grey Rolls-Royce. Jim would exact humble 
apologies from the hateful woman, and then he would 
buy the Little House for a lordly sale-compelling sum, 
over which they would not haggle, although the place 
was “ in shocking condition.” Kissy could hear Jim 
say, “ It’s just a whim of my wife’s,” and she could see 
the bilious flush of envy on the woman’s face. 

Then they would pension off Charlotte. Buy her a 
cottage in the country where she could keep fowls. 
Fina would marry the chauffeur and become head nurse 
to Kissy’s babies. As for the butcher’s wife, she would 
die of envy because of the bills Kissy would run up at 
the rival establishment over the way. 

What a pity she could not tell Charlotte all this ! 


330 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

But that was impossible. It would have been as nasty 
as saying : “ If you please, sir or madam, he’s going to 
make an honest woman of me ! ” Kissy would not 
admit — ah, veil your faces, O neighbours ! — that she was 
a dishonest one. 

Jim had never treated her as if she was different to 
other women. Kissy dwelt with loving exultation on all 
the little acts of courtesy that had always accompanied 
their life together. . . . “ Since I am his mistress — and 
it’s not an ugly word, except when she said it as if it 
dirtied her horrid mouth — of course, I’m not really 
respectable, but he always behaved as if I was, he never 
reproached me what I hadn’t meant to do, he never 
made me feel horrid, and ” — ah, the victorious argument 
of that thought — “ he wanted to marry me . . . and to 
have babies when we could afford them ! . . .” 

Then Kissy noticed that she had thought in the past 
tense, and suddenly she realized, with a cold sensation 
of sickness, that she was beginning to wonder — 

Why had he not written for so long ; why had he not 
written since ? The post card that arrived from Switzer- 
land was flabby and worn with much fondling, and none 
had arrived to replace it. It was true that one could not 
depend on the postal arrangements nowadays, and there 
were a thousand excuses for the lengthening silence. 
On the other hand, there were a thousand-and-one reasons 
why he might have written, and surely he might have 
found some way of letting her know' about the inheritance 
since that would make the babies possible. He knew 
how much she wanted those babies. . . . She reflected 
carefully. The last post card must have been sent before 
this thing had happened ; he could not have known it 
himself then . . . and since that time he had not 
written. 

Now Kissy knew that her wonder was changing to 
doubt. 


FROM THE BLUE 331 

Perhaps Lord St. Berwyth would not — no, not that, 
but could not — carry out the plans that had been made 
by plain Mister Crighton. Perhaps . . . what a horrible 
weight on one’s heart, like a cold poultice, clammy and 
heavy and stifling ! 

Kissy walked alone in the wood, quite alone, without 
even Whiskers. 

The sky was doleful, and the first autumn leaves were 
fluttering softly to the earth. It had been raining, but 
with the carelessness of lonely youth Kissy sat down in 
the wet grass at the edge of the lake, where the trees 
bend over the waters that darken from dull copper to 
black as the sun shines and fades. With her face half 
buried in the tall collar of her raincoat, she strove to 
smooth down the creases in her brain and “ think it 
out.” 

All the doubts as to her fitness for the greatness that 
she had thought was about to be thrust upon her, re- 
turned overwhelmingly. This time it seemed as if not 
even the most motherly, or aunt-like, of Bensonian 
Duchesses could ever set things right, or teach her all 
that she did not and would never know. Dimly she be- 
gan to realize that she must not, perhaps, consider her 
own personality alone in the matter. Besides her own 
demerits , there were those of her mother’s before her to 
count with. 

She meant no disloyalty to the little dancing-girl who 
had borne her, but one could not alter the facts that she 
marshalled thus : 

“ She did wrong and I did wrong, and it only mattered 
to us, but if I had a daughter, and she grew up to do 
wrong — and children inherit wrongness like drink and 
consumption and those things — it would be different, 
it would matter frightfully. And then, how could I bear 
to look Jim in the face ? . . . And when a woman has 
done wrong people always know ... it ‘ outs ’ worse 


332 


THE BROKEN LAUGH 

than murder . . . and after a war like this, when so 
many splendid people have died, English children ought 
to be as perfect as they can be.” 

Vividly Kissy imagined the possible horror of one day 
meeting that other man — the dim, utterly forgotten, 
and now resuscitating spectre of the past. She shudder- 
ingly imagined how, also, she might meet some one who 
had seen her in the house of the rue Macabre. She set up 
innumerable bogeys and trembled at their grimacing 
shadows. . 

Suppose, then, that Jim and she went on living as they 
had been living till now — what would happen ? The 
situation would remain the same, since Kissy could not 
possibly be more damned by public opinion than she was 
now. The only joyous difference was that Jim would 
see to it that public opinion did not express itself within 
hearing. 

Life would be just as beautiful as before, only without 
babies to look forward to, and without hope of ever 
being really respectable ; though now, of course, she 
was beginning to be afraid she never could have become 
that, since the past is always the past, and certain trans- 
gressions unpardonable. 

But that did not matter so much as the babies. Jim 
ought to have babies. People with titles always had to. 
And since she was not fit to be their mother, how could 
he have them ? 

“ It ’ud be wrong to let him give it all up — as he’d have 
to do with me — even if he wanted to,” she decided. “ And 
besides, does he want to ? Jim does, p’raps, but Lord 
St. Berwyth mayn’t. . . .” And round, around the 
weary circle of thought Kissy travelled, dropping con- 
demning arguments on the way, forgetting them and 
becoming light-headed in consequence, only to sink under 
their accusing logic when they suddenly recalled them- 
selves to her memory with persistent intermittence. 


FROM THE BLUE 333 

“ It’s got to be married — or nothing — because of the 
babies,” she said, at last, “ and if it’s married it’s wrong, 
and if it’s nothing it’ll mean . . Kissy could find no 
words to express the anguish that possessed her soul. 
She looked down inquiringly at the waters of the lake, 
her green eyes pale with horror. “ I could not,” she said, 
“ I’d be so frightened to die all alone. And if, after all, 
Jim comes back and wants me still, even if it is wrong ? ” 
Then, defiantly : “ Why shouldn’t I ? Perhaps our 

children would all be boys, and boys can’t go wrong in 
mother’s or my way, then , perhaps, it ’ud be almost all 
right. I could say I was an invalid, perhaps. Rich 
people often do have invalid wives, and I could hide away 
when folks came. . . .” Clearly Kissy was coming to 
the same conclusion that Jim had reached a few weeks 
earlier. Unlike Jim, however, she was not able to leave 
the matter on the knees of the gods, and when she rose 
from the damp grass to make her way homewards, the 
mild drizzle having become a Belgian downpour, she 
looked once more at the water, wistfully, because she 
knew she would never dare to seek that remedy, and 
bitterly said, but without really meaning it, that she 
wished she had never been born. 

***** 

Charlotte opened the door of the Little House, in 
answer to Kissy ’s double ring, with a flourish. She was 
pink with suppressed excitement, and Kissy knew that 
something had happened — something pleasant to judge 
by the woman’s air of exultant importance. 

“ When I told Madame that things would come 
right — ” she began triumphantly, then, breaking off as 
she saw Kissy ’s wringing condition — “ but Madame 
is not serieuse , Madame will catch the death if she 
rests with such wet clothes . . ; and Kissy was 

bustled upstairs to change wet skirts and sopping 


334 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

shoes and stockings before Charlotte would disgorge 

her secret. 

The newspaper man had come back ! 

Yes, it was so, and Charlotte had spoken with him ! 
Since May he had been in prison. Ah, but it was terrible 
to see how much he was thin ; the bones were passing 
him through the skin. 

But had he brought some papers ? The Times ? 
Where, then, were they ? 

Yes, some journals he had brought, but Charlotte was 
not going to be hurried. Before she told Kissy where 
she had hidden them, she must first explain that she had 
demanded of the man if he did not know some one who 
would have the enterprise to smuggle a letter over the 
frontier and post it in Holland. And the man had 
answered that he thought, well, he could find some one to 
do this. Let Madame write the letter on fine, fine paper 
with a pen which would be also all that was fine, for the 
smaller the size of the tetter the better. If the friend 
the man knew of consented to charge himself with the 
message, he would take it to-morrow on returning to 
fetch the papers. 

Yes, that was wonderful, wonderful, and so clever and 
thoughtful of Charlotte ! Only where, in the meanwhile, 
were the journals the man had brought ? 

Behind the clock in the dining-room, and if Madame 
wished Charlotte would fetch them immed 

But Madame was already downstairs, imploring 
Whiskers, who thought that her rapid descent was for 
his entertainment, to get out of the way, blow him ! 

Then, when the thick folded papers were at last in her 
hands, and she could see the dear, smallish, familiar 
print, Kissy hardly dared to open them. 

“ Pragod,” she said, “ Pragod . . .” but that was all ; 
the words that were to formulate the request would not 
come. She was afraid. 


FROM THE BLUE 335 

With a brusque crackling of stout paper, she shook out 
the leaves, and the stomach of the paper slipped to the 
floor. Between her extended, trembling hands she 
grasped the front sheet, while her eyes sought and found 
the accustomed place of the agony column. But the 
words danced and blurred as the page fluttered between 
her shaking arms, and she was obliged to lay it flat on 
the table. 

Quickly she glanced down the long list of pet names 
sandwiched between “ Wanteds ” and “ Numerals.” 
There were “ darlings ” and “ dearests ” innumerable, 
but only here, yes, at last, quite at the bottom of the 
page, was the familiar “ To my dearest dear, sempre” 
the unchanging message that every day had awaited her, 
“ lovingly Jim.” 

Why had the newspaper man got sent to prison, why 
had she been made to suffer all those frightful weeks 
when, every day, that beloved paper had printed the 
same beloved message ! She had tormented herself so 
uselessly since nothing had changed ; Jim still loved her, 
he still wanted to 

But did he ? The distrust of self sown by Madame la 
propriitaire was bearing its horrid fruit. The message 
was signed, “ Jim.” Yes, Jim was still lovingly hers, 
but was Lord St. Berwyth ? Then Kissy felt that she 
was shameful. If Jim loved her, what on earth could 
come between them ? Exactly, but if it was wrong for 
Jim to love her, detrimental to Lord St. Berwyth, unfair 
to the babies that were waiting to be born ? And the 
dizzy cycle of thought again flashed round and round, 
morbidly relentless, in Kissy ’s weary brain. 

VIII 

Kissy was writing her letter ; on the thinnest of 
“ foreign ” notepaper, with the finest of “ mapping ” 
pens. 


336 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

She was ready for bed, and her dark hair, glossily 
woven into a long plait, dangled over her shoulder, 
between the table and her breast, almost to the floor. 
She sat at the toilet-table in Jim’s dressing-room. The 
bottles, brushes, and manicure instruments had been 
pushed to one side to make room for the blotting-book 
and the inkpot. 

She liked to write to Jim from the midst of Jim’s 
things, with the familiar smell of him around. It seemed 
almost as if she was speaking to him. 

Kissy’s shoulders were hunched. She wrote slowly 
and carefully, forming each separate letter with the 
deliberate application of a studious schoolgirl. She 
looked, as she pored over her delicious task, absurdly 
childish. 

With a precise conscientiousness that was quite absurd, 
she went into the minutest details of the expenditure of 
the money he had left in her hands. Then, with a sigh 
of relief, as the difficult task was ended, she tried to tell 
him of her misery during the silent weeks when he wrote 
not, and the immensity of her joy now that she had 
heard of him. 

“ . . . They were horrible days and nights,” she 
wrote ; “ it makes me frightened to think back. Hours 
like that make dents in my heart. I believe people’s 
hearts are like silkworms, a sort of hardish skin outside 
that keeps them together, but all squashy soft inside so 
that you can batter them about. Mine has been all 
squodged up, but now it’s swollen with happy bigness — 
oh, my darlingest, if you only could guess how I love you. 

“ I close my eyes and hold out my arms to you every 
night in the darkness, and they are always empty. 
Only the pillow is there, and I am cold, cold, cold, even 
in August. When you didn’t write, and the newspaper 
man was in prison, the foolish thoughts were like living 
nightmares. But, I suppose' down in the bottomest 


FROM THE BLUE 887 

drawer of my heart I knew you couldn’t forget, and that’s 
how I managed to go on waiting. And the news of your 
being a lord 1 O, Cosiest, I read it in a Daily Mail that 
a flower-woman lent me — how wonderful it was : and I 
dreamed Christmassy dreams of how grand we were going 
to be. You are going to be grand, dearest dear. In 
truth you always have been, but I am afraid I never shall. 
You see, the people here have found out that I’m not 
really respectable. I know you don’t believe it, but it’s 
the truth, all the same, because other people will always 
think so. And so, of course, you mustn’t marry me 
because of the heir that I wouldn’t be a respectable 
mother for. And yet if you came to me and said : 
4 Marry me all the same, my dearest dear,’ as somehow 
I think you will, no matter what folks say, how could I 
answer, 4 No ’ ? I couldn’t. I’m not like Marguerite 
Gautier and all those expiatory heroines, who considered 
themselves damned from the post to the finish. Even if 
I am what they call an abandoned creature, I don’t 
really feel wicked about it. Besides, how could you love 
an abandoned creature ? Oh, Cosiest, the paper is 
filling up, though I’m writing so small and never wasting 
even half a line, and I’ve got such lots still to say. I 
must say it in three words. I love you. I love you — 
I love you. And even if I’ve been thinking forward too 
happily, and things don’t happen as they do in dreams, 
then I must think backwards. Whatever happens, my 
darling, we have had beautiful years together. There 
isn’t a minute that I would have had different. Any- 
body could say this, but I wonder if there is a lover in 
all the eternity of ages, since speech was first evolved 
from the chatterings in the tree-tops, who says it as 
heartfeltfully as I do. Close your dear eyes, my darling, 
and take me in your arms. Can’t you hear me, my lips 
are saying it to yours — I love you — I love you in- 
finitely. . . .” 


338 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

The little travelling clock, that was one of Jim’s 
gymkhana trophies, chimed its twelve strokes with 
melodious precision, as Kissy carefully put down her pen 
so that it should not roll and soil the minutely written 
page. She had had a wonderful talk with Jim, and she 
was perfectly happy as she folded the flimsy paper into a 
thin visiting-card envelope and addressed it. Then 
swiftly she turned out the light, ran into the bedroom, 
and slipped between the sheets. 

She lay with wide-open eyes gazing through the un- 
curtained windows at the gently oscillating tree-tops 
of the wood beyond the garden and at the solemnly 
blinking stars. Under her cheek the oblong shape 
of the little envelope pressed its sharp corners into 
her skin. She moved her face caressingly over its 
surface. 

“ All my heart is there,” she said, as she snuggled and 
closed her eyes, “ every bit of it.” 

IX 

Kissy slept late, almost till eight o’clock, when the 
most astounding of thunder crashes tore sleep from her 
and set her, heavy-eyed and dizzy for a moment, on her 
feet at the bedside. 

“An attack, an aeroplane attack, Scallywag,” cried 
Kissy exultantly, but Whiskers had already departed 
kitchenwards in search of breakfast. 

In her hurry it was Jim’s bathrobe that Kissy slipped 
into, but even in her eagerness she found time to sniff 
delightedly, because it still smelt so “ Jimmy.” As she 
dashed upstairs to the attic, the long, tasselled ends of the 
girdle thwacked on the steps as they trailed, unfastened, 
behind her. 

Her hair had worked loose from its confining plait in 
the night, and hung in heavy masses over her shoulders 


FROM THE BLUE 389 

and back to her waist, clinging to her temples and neck 
in little damp rings from the heat of the pillow. All 
traces of sleep had vanished in her quick rush to see the 
aviators. Her grey eyes were bright and her cheeks 
flushed with excitement. 

It must have been a misty dawn, one of such which 
herald a warm and brilliant September day, and as Kissy 
flung outwards and back the lid-like attic window, the 
sun thrust its rays impatiently between the blanket of 
clouds which had been muffling their splendour, and 
the heart of the sky showed in patches, resplendently 
blue. 

Kissy was alone on her roof-top. There had been too 
many “ accidents ” during the last raid not to have 
chilled the enthusiasm of the crowd that now watched 
timorously from doorways, from behind kitchen windows, 
or was merely content to listen to the booming song of 
the shrapnels from the smutty depth of coal and wine 
cellars. So far as Kissy could see, only three devil-may- 
care youths sat astride the red slanting roof of a tiny 
house at the end of the avenue, as if on the upturned keel 
of a small rowing-boat. They held each other by the 
waist, and waved white rags and towels like children 
playing at a shipwreck. An old bed-ridden servant, 
who lived in the house opposite, leaned from her bed and 
lifted the spotted muslin curtain from her tiny window 
with a hand that shook with the ague of old age, but not 
with fear. 

The blue of the sky was flecked already with in- 
numerable dabs of cotton-wool. Northwards, towards 
Berchem, they were thickest. It was queer to see them 
suddenly appear out of nothingness, toy-like bubbles of 
smoke that hung compactly for long instants before dis- 
solving slowly into nothingness again. How their pop- 
ping made one’s heart throb with excitement ! What 
were the aviators ? — French, English, Belgian ? English 


340 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

— oh, Jim ! — Kissy girded up her bathrobe with strong 
fingers that worked like little steel springs. Unutterably 
foolish though she knew it to be, the idea of Jim suddenly 
swooping down out of the Heavens and rescuing her with 
a rope thrown lasso-wise over her shoulders flashed 
through her mind, and, clambering on the hat-box that 
stood on the trunk by her, she stood, head and body out 
in the open, the sloping red roof slanting away from her 
on all sides. 

Eagerly she craned on tiptoe. The dull, monotonous 
thudding of the exploding shells was louder, and the 
flakes of cotton-wool were snowing more thickly above 
the heart of the city. Where .were the aeroplanes ? 
Were there several ? Was thfcre only one ? At last it 
seemed to Kissy that she saw the flying hero — an in- 
finitely tiny speck above . . . no, in the midst of the 
snowstorm. Yes, that was he, crawling slowly in the 
direction of Waterloo. He would pass overhead. How 
high, how far he must be to seem to be going so slowly. 
How loudly the shrapnels were crashing, how thick were 
the puff-balls — “ Ah, don’t let that little speck be 
touched. Take care of him, Pragod, please, please take 
care of him, up there so near You. . . .” Kissy watched 
with dry mouth and aching throat, till the ever-moving 
speck doubled and tripled before her straining eyes. 
Serenely it progressed, victoriously unscathed by the 
insistant shells so doggedly environing it. 

“ Well,” said Kissy, vaguely perceiving that some one 
had tugged at the hem of her night-gown — “ what 
is it ? ” 

“ A letter, Madame,” answered Fina, “ a monsieur has 
come this minute to bring it. He wishes also to know 
at what hour he can speak with Madame. ...” 

“ Yes, yes, I will see. One instant. Wait, Fina, I 
will give the answer,” but Kissy stared skywards at the 
advancing speck, without a glance for the envelope that 


FROM THE BLUE 341 

she had taken from the servant and held crumpled in 
her hand. 

The white flecks were almost overhead now, and a new 
sharp, strange sound was making itself heard above the 
humming whir of the motor and the mumbled booming 
of the exploding shells. It was like the splitting screech 
of torn new linen, a curious, intermittent noise that 
Kissy had never heard before. 

Fina backed slowly towards the door. The kitchen 
was an infinitely more comfortable place to be in during 
an aeroplane attack. If Madame chose to expose her- 
self out there on the roof, it was Madame’s affair, Fina 
thought, but she, for one, had no desire to be so im- 
prudently foolish. 

“ I go fetch the dSjeuner of Madame,” she murmured, 
on the threshold of the attic. “ I will bring it, and 
take the answer of Madame when I remount . . 
then carefully closing the door behind her, she scurried 
down to the reassuring shelter of the basement just 
as a loud crash, suggestive of an uptipped cart un- 
loading broken bricks, sounded from somewhere along 
the street. 

Kissy, tiptoeing on her pile of boxes, heard too, and 
looking eastwards, saw, not thirty yards away in the 
direction of the Waterloo Road, a mist of dust, or was it 
smoke, arising. There were cries, a woman w r as shriek- 
ing, people were running. The tearing, screeching sound 
came again, and this time Kissy understood. But it was 
in no panic-stricken flurry that she made ready to 
descend. She put her hands on the edges of the window 
to steady herself for the downward climb, and then she 
saw the letter. For a moment she paused to smooth it 
out and read the address. As her eyes realized the 
familiar handwriting, all was forgotten : the aeroplane 
hovering overhead, the booming of the guns, the scream- 
ing hiss of the murderous German shells. 


342 THE BROKEN LAUGH 

Jim’s writing ! A real letter, and more news to be had 
for the asking, since downstairs some one waited for an 
answer — thank God for the roar of the shells that told 
her it was not a marvellous dream ! — how loudly that 
one had shrieked as it tore past ! 

Jim’s writing, Surely, but something was unfamiliar. 
What was that name he had written, a name that was 
not “ Crighton ” — what did he mean ? 

“ Oh,” said Kissy. “ Oh ! . . 

Lady St. Berwyth, Lady St. Berwyth — there it stared 
boldly black from the white paper ; plainly written for 
all to see. . . . There was no more possible doubt. 
Kissy threw back her head and smiled exultantly 
at the glorious blue of the sky. Her heart was burst- 
ing with love for the man who had so honoured her. It 
was her moment ; the crowning climax of her abortive 
life. Jim had thought her worthy . . . nothing could 
hurt her now ! Nothing ! Not even the crashing sound 
that had enveloped her, the darkness that had blotted 
out the wonderful kindly sky above ; not even the 
hideous sensation of falling, falling interminably amidst 
acrid dust and crumbling bricks. It did not even 
hurt to know that this was the finish, for even as 
she crumbled to the floor in the midst of the ruins 
of the shell -tom roof, she saw a glorified vision of the 
Little House standing in a blur against the blackness 
that was looming. It had grown, perhaps, a little, 
and it was June time, for there were roses. The 
garden was bigger. There was a tiny pond with a 
toy boat upon it, and at the top of the dangerous iron 
stairs, that led downwards from the terrace, was a little 
wooden gate. 

“ My dear,” whispered Kissy, “ my dearest dear . . . 
how wonderful ! ” 

Then, as the final darkness fell, she knew her dream 
had dreamed itself out, and that this was the best. 


848 


FROM THE BLUE 

In the hush that settled over the broken attic, no 
sound echoed for a breathless space, then came the 
frantic pattering of rapid paws, and the frenzied whine 
of a little dog scratcning madly at the closed unshattered 
door. 



































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